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Gospel 
Sword Thrusts 


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Mark A. Matthews 


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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 

















GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


) 




Gospel Sword Thrusts 



MARK A. MATTHEWS, D.D., 

Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, 
Seattle , Wash . 



New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 


Copyright, 1924, by 

FLEMING H, REVELL COMPANY 





New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 

uliN -6 1924 

©C1A792G98 

'Ho t 


Contents 


I. God.7 

II. The Everlasting Trinity ... 16 

III. The Threefold Program of the 

Trinity .26 

IV. The Scarlet Fine.39 

V. The Virgin Birth of Jesus ... 49 

VI. Christ the Sum of All Things . . 59 

VII. The Disposition of Jesus ... 67 

VIII. The Approach of Satan ... 74 

IX. The Stewardship of Life ... 85 

X. Contending for the Eaith ... 94 

XI. The Infallible Test .... 100 

XII. The Crime Wave Producers . . 109 

XIII. The Old and the New Modernist . 122 

XIV. The Jew and His Relationship to 

the Present and the Future . 131 

XV. Christ Is Coming!.149 


5 











FOREWORD 



iHE sermons contained in this volume were 


preached in obedience to the Divine com¬ 


mand, “Defend the faith delivered once 
for all to the saints.” While delivered for the 
defense of the faith they had another purpose 
equally insistent, namely, the grounding and the 
developing of the saints. 

My heart's desire is that the members of the 
Body of Christ be so thoroughly indoctrinated 
that it can be said of them, “They are impreg¬ 
nable.” 

The great need of this hour is doctrinal preach¬ 
ing, and the mastering by the members of the 
Church of the great fundamental, evangelical doc¬ 
trines taught in God's infallible Word; because 
no born-again, thoroughly indoctrinated person 
ever yields to the influences of or is ever moved 
by false teachers or teachings. 

This volume of sermons called Gospel Sword 
Thrusts is sent forth with the prayer that these 
purposes may be accomplished. 

The book gives our testimony to the essential 
doctrines, and we pray that each reader will believe, 
defend, and testify to the same great truths. 


M. A. M. 


Seattle, Washington. 


I 


I 


GOD 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth ” —Genesis i : i. 

T N the beginning —God ” Around this decla¬ 
ration revolves the conflict. With measured 
words let me say, it is impossible for any 
man to be honest with himself and be an atheist, a 
pantheist, or an agnostic. Psychologically, it is 
impossible for one to deny the existence of God. 
Therefore, the reason for the attacks being made 
upon God, upon Christ, and upon the infallible 
Bible is to be found in two things: 

I. The attack is of Satanic origin. 

II. The theories antagonistic to God have been 
formulated, indirectly it may be, as the result of 
Satanic influences, and they are determined that 
those theories shall be sustained. In order to sus¬ 
tain them God must be eliminated. In other 
words, they have reached the position where they 
are willing to say: “No God, no master, no law, 
no responsibility ” 

These are the two reasons why the battle is so 
fierce. The rationalistic forces are logically an¬ 
tagonistic to God because their theories are based 
entirely upon rationalistic concepts. They have 


7 


8 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ignored the supernatural. Therefore, they are de¬ 
termined to sustain their rationalistic theories, and 
in order to sustain them they must destroy every 
vestige of belief in God, in Christ and in a super¬ 
natural revelation. They may deny this, but the 
logic of their premise drives them to such a 
conclusion. In fact, the last analysis of the con¬ 
troversy will show that it is not one of diverging, 
philosophical and theological belief, but one of 
veracity. It is a question of plain veracity, or it is 
a question of insanity. Grant that one is sane and 
that all of his powers are functioning and that he 
says there is no God, or that the whole conception 
of God must be put upon a rationalistic basis, then 
he is a perjurer. You cannot reduce God to the 
rationalistic basis. If you say, as the Bible teaches, 
that he who denies there is a God is a fool, then, 
of course, the controversy ends, because you admit 
he is not a responsible being. 

Paul took the same position when he said every 
man was without an excuse. Then, if without an 
excuse one deliberately denies God, or brings God 
to a rationalistic basis of interpretation, he of 
course brands himself as a perjurer. It is a ques¬ 
tion of veracity. This must be admitted when you 
think of the fact that the consciousness of the 
existence of God is in the very constitution of 
being—it is innate. There is no human being on 
earth whose subconscious soul does not know that 
God is, and that He is sovereign L,ord. 


GOD 


9 


I. " In the beginning God ” There are no 
peoples, no tribes, no individuals who are admitted 
to be sane existing anywhere in the world who do 
not know that God is . Moffat, you remember, 
challenged that statement, but Livingstone demon¬ 
strated that Moffat was wrong. Livingstone 
demonstrated that Moffat was in error when he 
said there were those who did not know. There * 
has never existed a people who did not believe in 
the existence of a Supreme Being. The innate 
knowledge of God is of supernatural origin. The 
very existence of the human soul makes it possible 
for innate knowledge of God to exist. No other 
form of life, no other being, no other life-unit has 
a soul. 

Why did man have it ? Because in that soul was 
to reside the innate knowledge of the supreme God 
of this universe, who created all things, and who 
put man over all lower creations. The soul could 
not have come into existence by any other process 
of development or evolution. It is immortal and 
of supernatural origin—therefore of divine cre¬ 
ation. You must destroy the fact that the human 
family and each individual in it from the begin¬ 
ning to the present moment has been in possession 
of the innate knowledge of the existence of God, 
before you can prove there is no God. The fact of 
this consciousness is an infallible proof of the ex¬ 
istence of God. This consciousness could not have 
come from any other source. If the consciousness 


10 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


exists, God exists. If God exists, the conscious¬ 
ness is logically in existence. This consciousness 
is universal. The universality of the consciousness 
of the existence of God must be destroyed before 
you can destroy belief in God. In the beginning 
God created man with this consciousness residing 
in the immortal soul, breathed into him by Al¬ 
mighty God. 

II. You must answer the great doctrine of cause 
and effect. We stand in the midst of things, sur¬ 
rounded by a wilderness of witnesses. Whence 
came they? How did they come into existence? 
What is the cause? Who designed them? You 
must answer these questions, and present another 
case before you can destroy belief in God. These 
things are not of themselves; they are not self- 
existent. There is no such thing as spontaneous 
generation of life. When the Psalmist beheld the 
heavens and the worlds beyond, he cried out, “ Thy 
handiwork.’’ Every world, every planet, and every 
system of worlds teaches infallibly the existence of 
a designing, willing, planning, executing creator— 
God. Adam said it; Job said it; the Psalmist said 
it; and no thinking, living being has ever looked 
into the blue dome of the heavens who has not im¬ 
mediately been made conscious of the fact of the 
existence of God, who planned, designed, created 
and flung into space every world! 

“ In the beginning God created.” Reasoning 
from effect back to cause we are compelled to say. 


GOD 


11 


“ In the beginning the self-existent God created.” 
Of course they are trying to destroy that doctrine 
and that process of reasoning. They are trying to 
say that the hypothesis of biological evolution is an 
answer, but they have to bridge a gap of hundreds 
of thousands of years, and they are compelled to 
answer the impossible question—is there such a 
thing as spontaneous generation of life? They 
cannot answer these questions. Therefore the 
doctrine of materialistic evolution is antagonistic 
to God, is a stab at Christ, and detrimental to spir¬ 
itual growth. “ In the beginning God created.” 
There is no other correct statement of the existence 
of things. 

III. The argument of design. The existence of 
these things proves the Creator. The movement of 
the planets proves the designing power of the 
Creator. God’s plan, God’s design can be under¬ 
stood by a thorough study of the movement of 
the planets, and worlds, and things. Why day 
and night, why sunshine and shadow, why dew and 
rain, why growth and death, why seed-time 
and harvest, why moon and stars, why planets and 
worlds moving in perfect harmony according to a 
fixed and eternal design—why? It could not have 
been otherwise, because an orderly God, designing 
and planning, made it so. In the beginning God 
designed, planned, created and put in perfect har¬ 
monious motion the world and all systems of 
worlds. Just as you look at the watch you may 


12 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


hold in your hand to read the time and see written 
on its face the very purpose of the watch and the 
design of the watchmaker, so you can look into the 
face of time and into the movements of worlds and 
see the design of God. There is no conflict in 
worlds—Why? Because of God’s design. 

The light of undiscovered planets which has been 
traveling towards this little globe for centuries is 
just reaching us. Why wasn’t the light lost, and 
how could it travel through space and time infinite? 
The answer is God, who designed and created and 
made possible. 

IV. In the theological argument of adjust¬ 
ments and relationships we find God. The science 
of God and His relationship to man is the most 
interesting study in the world. Who made the ad¬ 
justment, who created the relationship, and who 
made possible the permanent connection between 
God and man? No one would be foolish enough to 
say that man made them. If they are to exist this 
relationship and adjustment must be made by a 
supernatural power. When you eliminate the 
power and the majesty and grace of God, you are 
lost. You cannot explain man’s relationship to God 
and God’s benevolent, adjusting grace except on the 
ground of the existence of God, His design, pur¬ 
pose, will and love. Therefore, no man with a con¬ 
science, who is honest with himself, can be an 
atheist or a pantheist. 

God is , and our relationship to Him must be the 


GOD 


13 


result of the plan created by Him. It is on that 
basis that our adjustments must be made. Our 
very creation and existence proves this argument. 
We were created in His image. No one was 
created outside of the image of God, or without 
the image of God. The very reasoning processes 
resident in the human being are proof of a 
reasoning God, and of the fact that we were 
created in His image. Only God’s masterpiece— 
man—reasons. 

The moral doctrine is proof positive of the fact 
that we were created in His image. There is no 
moral responsibility governing the law of creation. 
I care not in what sphere of the animal world you 
dwell, there is no moral responsibility, no moral 
turpitude or law governing them. The very ex¬ 
istence of a moral government proves God, and the 
very fact that that moral government applies only 
to man is an infallible proof that he was created in 
the image of God, and that this moral relationship 
to God is of supernatural origin. 

The biggest word in the world is “ ought.” 
Why is there an innate consciousness of “ ought ” ? 
Because the innate consciousness reveals God, and 
the subject standing before the supreme sovereign 
of the universe instantly is brought before the 
majesty of “ ought.” There isn’t a savage in the 
world who does not feel something of the pull of 
the eternal Ought. The individual himself as a 
separate unit feels his relationship to God, and in 


14 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


his inmost soul says “ I ought.’’ When he comes 
into the relationship of the family it is more 
apparent. When he becomes a unit in society it is 
controlling, and when he comes into spiritual rela¬ 
tionship with God it is imperative, and he stands in 
awe before the majesty of God and says, “ I ought 
to obey God rather than man.” The moral gov¬ 
ernment of God leads us to reverence Him, teaches 
us to worship Him, to obey Him, to love Him. 
This consciousness is proof of the existence of 
God, and of the fact that we were created in 
His image. 

V. The great fact of revelation. Divine, in¬ 
fallible revelation proves the existence of God. 
What is revelation? When we speak of the Bible 
as being God’s infallible Word, His infallible reve¬ 
lation, we should know the meaning of the word 
“ revelation.” Revelation means the uncovering of 
that which exists. Revelation does not create, 
revelation reveals what is. The Bible does not 
create God; it does not present a hypothetical view 
of God; it does not present an hypothesis; it does 
not make a guess; it reveals that which exists. It 
tells of God. It reveals the existing will of God 
concerning mankind. It exposes the hatred of 
God for sin, and unfolds the love of God for a 
lost soul. All of these are existing facts. There¬ 
fore it is an infallible revelation, because it un¬ 
covers an infallible, existing, eternal, everlasting, 
sovereign God. In the beginning God designed. 


GOD 


15 


God created, God sent forth His Son, God re¬ 
vealed—“ in the beginning, God/"' 

No man can destroy his consciousness of God. 
He cannot efface the image God has planted, nor 
can he take from creation the design written all 
over the face of creation. He cannot explain the 
moral consciousness, nor can he silence the voice 
of the eternal Ought. 

No one has been able to destroy the Bible, the 
revelation which uncovers God and reveals His will 
to man. Therefore I believe, and my belief is 
based upon knowledge, innate knowledge* super¬ 
natural knowledge, moral knowledge, experimental 
knowledge. I believe, and know in whom I believe 
—the everlasting God, the Triune God, who loved 
me enough not only to write me a letter, but to send 
His Son, who indited the letter, who died to save 
me, arose as the ground of my justification, and 
has promised to take me to His Father, where we 
shall dwell together for ever and ever. 

“ In the beginning God/” my sovereign, saving, 
loving, redeeming God. I believe Him, accept 
Him, and accept His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
And to every unsaved person I say—believe in 
God, in Christ, in the Holy Ghost and you are 
saved instantly. 

“ In the beginning God/' and in the end of my 
earthly existence I shall go back to God and give 
an account of the deeds done in the body. Oh, 
the majesty of my God! 


II 

THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


“ There is but one God .”— i Corinthians 8:6. 

“ Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Ghost.”— Matthew 28:19. 

B ELIEF in the existence of God is universal. 
You may say the Scriptures presuppose and 
assume the existence of God. It would be 
much more logical and truthful to say they recog¬ 
nize the innate, constitutional, universal knowledge 
of the existence of God. The Scriptures do not 
try to prove the existence of God. That marvelous 
fact is self-convincing. It is impossible for any one 
who thinks and reasons to deny the existence of 
God. It is stated in Holy Writ, “ The fool hath 
said in his heart there is no God.” There is not a 
human being in the world, regardless of his status 
being high or low, who hasn’t the inner conscious¬ 
ness of the existence of God. 

Admitting the existence of God, you are con¬ 
fronted with the fact that belief in God involves 
more than merely accepting the fact of His exist¬ 
ence. Belief in God involves belief in Jesus Christ. 
Belief in God and in Christ compels belief in the 
Holy Ghost. Therefore, you are face to face with 
God, Christ and the Holy Ghost. In addition, you 
16 


THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


17 


cannot believe in the members of the Trinity with¬ 
out believing in divine revelation. Revelation is 
absolutely necessary. It may be said without fear 
of contradiction that revelation is infallible. Reve¬ 
lation is in the nature of God. When you think of. 
God you are compelled to admit revelation. Reve¬ 
lation is in the decree of God, because in the nature 
of God, not only revelation through creation, but 
through divine, specific, plenary revelation. In the 
necessity of the case the Bible had to come, because 
God’s relationship to the members of the Trinity, 
and the Trinity’s relationship to Him could not be 
revealed in any other way. 

It is beyond possibility for one to separate these 
four great facts: God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, 
Divine Revelation—God’s infallible Book. If you 
discard the Father you cannot have the Son. If 
you discard the Son, you cannot have the Holy 
Ghost. If you discard the Holy Ghost and the Son, 
you cannot have the Scriptures. Therefore, the 
Scriptures do not assume the existence of God, but 
the Scriptures are in the very nature of the case, 
infallible proofs of the existence of God, and are 
incapable of separation from God. 

In the study of God, you first consider the per¬ 
sonality of God. When you begin to study the 
personality of God you will be compelled to refute 
the false teachings of all ages. Pantheism im¬ 
mediately rears its head. It states that God is all, 
and all is God. Such a doctrine, of course, strikes 


18 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


at the personality of God, denies His creative 
power, eliminates Christ, and repudiates the Holy 
Ghost. Such a doctrine is blasphemous, and 
out of it have emerged all of the cults—Hindu 
philosophy, pagan evaporations, and every mod¬ 
ern form of so-called ethical yet faith-destroying 
organizations. 

Careful reasoning forces one in viewing creation 
to admit a designing personality. Divine revela¬ 
tion teaches, not only the personality of God, but 
also the personalities of the Trinity. It is impos¬ 
sible to think of God without admitting and think¬ 
ing of the personality of God. It is impossible to 
logically think of God without personality. If 
God could exist without personality, then He would 
be an object for hatred rather than love. Cursed 
be the pantheistic idea of God. Any one, it seems 
to me, with common sense and with a soul retain¬ 
ing a spark of life, would hate a pantheistic God. 
In studying both creation and revelation you are 
forced to the conclusion that God is the Creator. 
In the face of this inevitable conclusion the false 
teachers speak of the great things, the dynamic 
force, and the first cause. In so doing they are 
eliminating the personality of God. If you de¬ 
stroy belief in God’s personality and creative 
power you must destroy the human soul. It 
could not have come into existence in any way 
except through the creative act of God. The 
human soul could not exist if God’s personality 


THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


19 


be not a fact, and if His creative act did not bring 
it into existence. 

In the book of beginnings it is said “ Let us” 
That is not a mistranslation; it is not a mistaken 
use of words; the writer did not ignorantly use the 
plural for the singular. He wrote exactly what 
God dictated. God said, “ Let us make man in our 
image.” Who constitutes the “ us ” ? What is the 
“ image ”? 

Again, God uses the same words when He 
speaks of destroying man’s efforts to build the 
Tower of Babel. The Word says, “ Let us go 
down and there confound their language that they 
may not understand one another’s speech.” 

The Scriptures state that “ in the beginning was 
the Word ”—co-equal, coeval, eternal. Yet God 
says that He is the Father, and Christ the Son. 
Christ in His Incarnate form stood before the 
world exhibiting the personality of God. Behind 
Christ was the personality of the Father. The 
Scriptures also speak of the personality of the Holy 
Ghost. To deny the personality of the Holy Ghost 
is to utter blasphemy. Christ speaks of Him as a 
person. We are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit 
not to quench the Holy Spirit, not to lie to the Holy 
Spirit. You cannot grieve, nor quench, nor lie to 
an impersonal thing. Ananias was stricken be¬ 
cause he lied to the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost 
could not have done anything else than strike 
Ananias dead for the lie he had told, because his 


20 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


effort to lie to the Holy Ghost when brought face 
to face with the Third Person of the Trinity was 
in the nature of a blasphemous denial of His 
personality and of His right to know all about 
the transaction under consideration. There was 
nothing else for the Holy Ghost to do but to strike, 
and in that way, and through the death of Ananias, 
the personality, and power, and sovereignty of the 
Holy Ghost were established beyond question. It 
was an indispensable act of the Holy Ghost. It 
was perfectly logical. 

These facts present to us the great doctrine of 
the Trinity. In thinking of the Trinity do not fall 
into the error of some who state there are three 
persons—three in one and one in three. The 
Scriptures do not teach that doctrine. The Bible 
teaches that there is one Being in three Persons— 
the eternal, everlasting, self-existent, self-created 
God, equal in power, substance, personality, and 
character. When God said, “ Let us make man,” 
He also continued in presenting the co-operating 
Trinity, and later in the Scriptures stated, “ Let us 
save man.” 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the 
fourteenth chapter of John you find an epitome of 
all the verses that might be quoted on the subject. 
Christ says: “ And I will pray the Father, and he 
shall give you another Comforter, that He may 
abide with you for ever.” In the council of the 
Trinity God said: “I will send my Son that He 


THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


21 


may die that man may be saved.” “ Let us make,” 
“ Let us save,” “ Let us comfort,” “ Let us gather 
unto ourselves.” Christ said, “ Father, thou gavest 
them,” “ I have kept them,” “ I will bring them,” 
“ I will come for them that where I am there they 
may be for ever.” “ Let us make, let us save, let 
us comfort, let us gather, let us dwell together 
for ever.” 

The doctrine of the Trinity is the most practical 
doctrine in the Bible. It is essential; k is impera¬ 
tive ; because we find that sin means that the law of 
God has been violated. Only the fool denies the 
existence of God, and only the fool denies the ex¬ 
istence of sin. Sin is the violation of God’s law, 
the non-conformity to God’s will, rebellion against 
God’s authority, the denial of God’s personality, 
the refusal to accept God as the sovereign to whom 
every knee shall bow. Sin is a stubborn fact. 
How are you going to get rid of it? If it is a 
violation of God’s law, who is to satisfy the law? 
Who is to save the sinner? Who is to pardon the 
criminal? How is pardon to be brought about? 

You cannot answer these questions. If the 
Trinity does not exist, if God’s personality is not a 
fact, if Christ is not the eternal Son of God, if the 
Holy Ghost is not the Third Person of the Trinity, 
then these questions cannot be answered. You 
cannot solve the problem of man’s responsibility 
and accountability to God except through pardon. 
The sinner cannot pay his debt to law, to society, 


22 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


to God. The very nature of the case demands an 
intermediary. A bankrupt cannot pay; a dead man 
cannot pay a debt. Therefore you must put super¬ 
natural power into the man if you are going to 
solve the problem of sin; or, you must admit the 
existence of the supernatural, Triune God if you 
are going to establish pardon for the sinner. If 
the Trinity does not exist, then salvation is im¬ 
possible. Pardon must be preceded by propitiation. 
Pardon is not conditioned upon the merit of the 
criminal, but upon the merit of an intermediary 
who has satisfied the law for the criminal. God 
cannot pardon the sinner unless His pardoning act 
is preceded by the propitiating act satisfying the 
law of God. Law cannot be merciful, law cannot 
be lenient, law cannot be forgiving. Law has but 
one end—justice. Therefore, in the work of sal¬ 
vation the Holy Trinity is involved. Propitiation 
must precede pardon. The propitiating act must 
be a supernatural act by a supernatural member of 
the Trinity. Therefore propitiation must be of 
God, through Christ. Pardon must be by Al¬ 
mighty God, propitiation must be by Christ, re¬ 
generation must be by the Holy Ghost. 

The Scriptures plainly teach that the sovereign 
God exists in three Persons; that the eternal Trin¬ 
ity is in the very nature of God essential in order 
that salvation may be effective. God the Father, 
God the Son, co-equal with the Father, standing 
as the Mediator between God and man, making 


THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


23 


propitiation for the sins of man, furnishing the 
ground on which God offers pardon to a lost soul; 
God the Holy Ghost must perform the regener¬ 
ating act. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is not an abstract 
doctrine—a mere theological discussion—it is a 
necessity. It is the most precious doctrine. There¬ 
fore if one denies the Trinity he blasphemes God. 
If he denies the Holy Ghost, His existence, His 
power and His personality and His work, he com¬ 
mits the unpardonable sin. He who rejects the 
deity of the second paraclete, the Holy Ghost, is 
beyond the power of God to save. 

The vicarious sacrifice of Christ makes it pos¬ 
sible for God to pardon. The Holy Ghost applies 
the blood of Jesus Christ and regenerates, creates 
the soul a new creature in Christ Jesus, and bap¬ 
tizes it into the body of Christ. Therefore the 
doctrine of the Trinity, the fact of the Trinity, the 
glorious experience of the Trinity are to the sinner 
more precious than all other facts. 

Because of these facts the forces of evil are 
making their attacks upon the members of the 
Trinity. They attack the deity of Christ because 
in doing so they are repudiating God. If belief in 
the deity of Christ can be destroyed, then they 
have successfully attacked the Trinity. If Christ 
is not God, there is no Trinity. If the Trinity does 
not exist there are no infallible Scriptures. They 
know these facts as thoroughly as you understand 


24 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


them. If they can break down belief in Christ and 
His vicarious atonement, then they can set up the 
doctrine of evolution, of environment, of re¬ 
demption through character or any other subter¬ 
fuge for salvation. You can see the importance of 
Christ to the whole doctrine of the Trinity. You 
cannot separate the members of the Trinity. You 
cannot accept God and reject the other members of 
the Trinity because they are inseparable. Christ 
said, “ I and my Father are one.” He further¬ 
more stated that mere belief in God and His exist¬ 
ence was not sufficient. “ Let not your heart be 
troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me.” 
You cannot accept Christ and reject the Holy 
Ghost, because Christ and the Holy Ghost are 
equal. You cannot have regeneration if the Holy 
Ghost does not exist. Christ furnishes the blood, 
the Holy Ghost applies and regenerates. 

When at last, in that heavenly home, you stand 
before Christ clothed in the corporate body in 
which He arose from the dead and ascended into 
heaven, you will then and there see God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost in the person 
of Jesus Christ. 

You cannot reject Christ and be saved. You 
cannot repudiate the Holy Ghost and be regener¬ 
ated. You cannot disbelieve in Christ and in the 
Holy Ghost and be pardoned. There is no salva¬ 
tion outside of the Trinity. Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ and thou art saved, because in that 


THE EVERLASTING TRINITY 


25 


act of belief God pardons, Jesus Christ redeems, 
and the Holy Ghost regenerates. All three mem¬ 
bers of the one sovereign God, performing their 
respective parts brings the new soul into existence 
as a new creature in Christ Jesus. 

Will you accept Christ ? There is no other way 
by which the Triune God can save you if you 
refuse. Salvation is instantaneous, perfect and 
efficient if you do accept Him. Let me urge you to 
take Him as your Savior, make your public con¬ 
fession of Jesus Christ. 


Ill 


THE THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF THE 
TRINITY 

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom 
the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, what¬ 
soever I have said unto you .”— John 14:26. 

I ASK you to carefully read, and study the four¬ 
teenth chapter of John. It is the most super¬ 
ficially read chapter in the Bible. As the 
key-verse I ask you to study the twenty-sixth. 
First of all, the chapter testifies to the existence of 
the Trinity. Secondly, it testifies to the unity of 
the Godhead. Thirdly, it testifies to the person¬ 
ality of the members of the Trinity. Fourthly, to 
the work, not only of the Trinity, working in uni¬ 
son, but also to the work performed by each mem¬ 
ber of the Trinity. Fifthly, its declaration that 
belief in the Trinity is essential. We hear so much 
about what is essential and what is not, it is well 
for us to listen to the standard authority—God's 
Word. Sixthly, the chapter testifies to the infalli¬ 
bility of the Scriptures. Seventhly, it testifies to 
the supreme work of the Trinity at the present time. 
These divisions will, perhaps, give you a superficial 


26 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 27 


estimate of the scope of the chapter, and the key, 
the twenty-sixth verse, will enable you to unfold 
the chapter. 

There are three divisions in the three-fold pro¬ 
gram of the Trinity—the program for today, the 
program for tomorrow, and the program for the 
future. In other words, what the Trinity is doing 
now, and will continue to do until the Rapture; 
what the Trinity will do after the Rapture, be¬ 
tween the period of the Rapture and the end of the 
Millennium; and, what after the end of the Mil¬ 
lennium and throughout eternity. 

I come, first, to the program of today. But first 
permit me to tell you of some of the things God is 
not doing, so that you may distinguish between 
the false teaching so rampant today, and the true 
Gospel. 

I. God is not creating anything. The period of 
creation ended some time ago. God is not in the 
business of making worlds, of creating species, of 
bringing new life into existence. God finished the 
work of creation and rested from His labors. Not 
that God ceased to work; but He ceased to do that 
kind of work is the statement of Holy Writ. 

II. God is not writing new revelations. The 
Book of Revelation is closed. There has not been 
a line added to the Scripture, nor a new sentence 
revealed by the Holy Ghost since the inspired 
record was finished. Nor will God ever make an¬ 
other revelation, either in this or the two succeed- 


28 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ing periods. God has thrown away His pen; He 
has ceased to write; there are no more manu¬ 
scripts to be prepared by Him. 

III. God is doing but one thing today, namely, 
saving souls. That is all He is doing, all He is 
going to do. That is now His supreme business. 

There are three supernatural Persons—the three 
Persons of the Trinity—engaged in this work. 
They are the supreme architects of the soul in its 
origination. They are the redeemers of the soul, 
the life and the body. They have prepared a home, 
and a state of labor, progress and development in 
that everlasting home. 

This chapter (fourteenth chapter of John) 
teaches that belief in the Trinity is essential, and 
it also reveals that the whole truth of that state¬ 
ment revolves around Jesus Christ. In the opening 
sentence of it Jesus said, “Ye believe in God.” 
That is inevitable; you cannot avoid it; you cannot 
escape it. There is only one way for man to escape 
believing in the existence of God, and that is to be 
born a fool. When any man of normal intellect, 
and normal in every other way, says he does not 
believe in the existence of God, then he perjures 
himself; and, the very denial is proof of the ex¬ 
istence of God, for you cannot deny that which 
does not exist. But, Christ says, “ You believe in 
God for two other reasons, not because of His 
existence only, but because of His benevolence, and 
because of His love, and because of His provision 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 29 


for you.” Those are things coming out of the 
general providence of God, that everyone inherits 
because he is a human being. 

But Christ states a more significant fact: “You 
believe in God, then you must believe in me, if you 
are going to have the benefits, the everlasting, 
saving benefits of the existence, mercy and love of 
God.” In other words, this wonderful chapter 
teaches that the love of God is suspended at a 
certain height above the individual, and the indi¬ 
vidual will never come into the benefits of that love 
other than those that general Providence bestows 
on both the wicked and the saved, such as life, air, 
light, sleep, opportunity, food. They have nothing 
to do with the salvation of man, have no relation¬ 
ship to the soul and should never be taken into con¬ 
sideration when talking about God’s work for the 
individual. The soul-saving power of God is sus¬ 
pended above the individual, and there is no way 
by which the connection can be made between 
God and the individual except through the Medi¬ 
ator, Christ. Christ says, “You will never be 
connected with God unless that connection is 
made through Me. You believe in God; there¬ 
fore, if the existence, the love, the power, the 
mercy, the goodness and the saving qualities of 
God are to be yours, they are to come from God, 
through Me, administered by Me, and distributed 
by Me.” 

He states another fact: “ I am going away. I 


30 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


am going back to the Father; but, I am not going 
to leave you without a representative—a Com¬ 
forter.” There are three definitions for the word 
“ Comforter.” First, as one great branch of the 
Church says, “ The second Paraclete,” simply. 
Comforter. The second is “ Teacher.” The third, 
“ Advocate.” Fourth, or rather the first repeated, 
plain “ Comforter.” 

I am talking, now, about what God the Father, 
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost are doing 
now. They are operating, not individually nor 
directly in their separate entity, but jointly through 
the Holy Ghost. In other words, the Father is not 
ignoring the other members of the Trinity in be¬ 
stowing benevolences. Jesus Christ is not ignoring 
the other members of the Trinity in saving souls. 
The Holy Ghost is the directly appointed executive 
of the Trinity in the world, doing the work of the 
Trinity in the salvation of souls. God does not 
speak to any one except through the Holy Ghost. 

Let us take another step: The whole question of 
the deity of the Trinity, is centered in the deity of 
Christ. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who is one 
with the Father, is God. And when you have 
admitted that, you have admitted the existence of 
the Trinity, the deity of the Trinity, and the work 
of the Trinity. That is the reason, the sole reason, 
why those who do not believe in Christ are attack¬ 
ing the Trinity. They have no reason to make an 
attack on the Trinity, except to break down Christ. 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 31 


They have no reason to attack Christ except to 
destroy His deity. There is not a man on earth 
making an attack on Christ because He is a man; 
nor is there a man on earth denying the existence 
of the human Christ. There is not an infidel on 
earth, there is not a man sufficiently inane to deny 
the stubborn, irrefutable facts of history. There¬ 
fore, every one who makes an attack on Christ is 
making it in order to destroy belief in His deity. 
If He be God, the Trinity is God, and His vica¬ 
rious atonement is the established route back to 
God. There is no other way back to Him. 

Now, what does Jesus say? He says, that the 
supreme business of the Trinity is to save the 
immortal soul. Think about that statement for a 
minute. What does it mean? If you can think 
in comprehensive terms of God, and if you can 
begin to think of Christ as God, and the Holy 
Ghost as God, and of the marvelous work God 
has done in creation—the marvelous and incom¬ 
prehensible things He has done—then you can see 
what it means for the members of the Trinity to 
make the saving of the soul their supreme business. 

But, as you are a superficial listener, you say to 
me: “ Why doesn’t God pick man up and save 
him ? ” Because, God created him a free moral 
agent; he did not develop into it. 

Had man developed into a free moral agent, 
God might have used some force on him. Had 
he evolved into a free moral agent God, perhaps. 


32 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


would have used some other power. But God 
created him a free agent, and that is as much a 
part of the creative work of God as the world 
itself. Therefore, if God makes the agent free, 
God is not going to break the reed, though it may 
be bent with sin and covered with the slime and 
muck of the pit. That is the reason God does not 
pick him up—snatch him up—and ; save him. 

God, the sovereign of the universe, expressed 
His love for a lost soul, not because the soul was 
lovely, nor because of its righteousness and obedi¬ 
ence, but, in spite of its unrighteousness and un¬ 
loveliness, and in spite of the fact that the soul 
was damned, God loved it. 

What next? This love logically must find ex¬ 
pression. Why? Because God is holiness. The 
holiness of God stands first, His love second, and 
the expression thereof, third. That love of God 
had its expression in Christ, the Incarnate Son of 
God, who was with God, who was God, became 
flesh so that God’s love might have tangible, reach¬ 
able, approachable, corporate form. Some of you 
say: “Look on a beautiful world, that tells me 
that God loves me.” It does not tell any such 
thing, except in the general sense of the exercise 
of God’s general providence that made everything 
lovely for those He loved. But when you say: 
“Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, loves me; 
I can feel Him, touch Him, hear Him, talk to 
Him, and know how to approach Him,” you are 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 33 


saying something very definite, very much more 
definite. God the Father begat the Son because 
He loved the sinner, and He sent the Son into the 
world for the sake of the sinner. The Son, the 
second Person of the Trinity, acquiescing, came 
and died because the sinner's death put out the 
candle. But Christ’s death lit the stars and made 
the path eternally bright and followable so that the 
benighted soul might come back to God. 

Christ said, “ God and I are one, but God can 
pardon.” Remember, Jesus has never had the 
pardoning power. God has retained the pardoning 
power. Christ said, “ God cannot pardon unless 
there is propitiation. It is God’s province to 
pardon; it is mine to propitiate.” Working to¬ 
gether beautifully, aren’t they? 

Here is God, in vicarious love, suspended above 
the lost, doomed and damned soul. God cannot, 
and will not directly make the connection. If the 
connection is made it must be made by the second 
Person of the Trinity, and when Jesus fills the gap 
between the suspended vicarious love of God, God 
cannot refuse nor withhold pardon from the soul 
with whom Christ has made the connection. 

God is not acting directly in making the connec¬ 
tion. That is why Job spake of the talisman and 
the Psalmist of the propitiator. Christ spoke of 
the fact: “ No man cometh to the Father except by 
Me ”—that is, “ except I make the connecting link.” 

Well, now, what has the Holy Ghost to do with 


34. 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


all this ? Christ said, “ I have finished this work; 
I am going back to the Father, but I am not going 
to leave you comfortless.” Oh, how desolate and 
disconsolate the world would have been if Jesus 
had gone back and left it without some member of 
the Trinity! “ I will not leave you comfortless,” 
He said, but He did not say He was going to send 
the Comforter. What He did say was: “ I will 
ask the Father.” Why? Because the Father is the 
Provider; Christ is the Propitiator; the Holy Ghost 
the Comforter. God the Father, the Creator, the 
Lover; Christ the Executor; the Holy Ghost, the 
Regenerator. 

Now, let us see what the Holy Ghost is doing. 
First of all, the Holy Ghost is doing the work of 
teaching. He is not the revealer, in the sense in 
which you speak of revelation. Frequently I hear 
people say: “ The Holy Ghost has revealed so and 
so to me.” The Holy Ghost has done no such 
thing. But Christ said, “The Holy Ghost will 
bring all things to your remembrance.” The Holy 
Ghost, since He took up His abode on earth as the 
executive of the Trinity, has not uttered one single 
new thought, nor revealed one single new thing to 
a soul on earth. Get that clearly. What does He 
say? He says that He will teach all things that 
Christ hath said and done. Do you notice where 
the dividing line comes in? In other words—here 
is the Bible. You know people everywhere are 
talking today about its proper interpretation. 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 35 


There is no man on earth who possesses the right 
to interpret the Bible, in any other way except that 
which coincides with the Bible’s interpretation of 
itself. When any one undertakes an interpretation 
that is not clearly within the interpretation the 
Bible itself gives, he is outside the confines of his 
province and outside the range of his power. The 
Bible, itself, is God’s infallible Word, His everlast¬ 
ing standard that cannot be changed. You cannot 
amend it, subtract from it, nor add to it. It is the 
standard fixed by Almighty God. God made the 
standard, and sent the Third Person of the Trinity 
to be the Teacher thereof. The Bible is the stand¬ 
ard; the Holy Ghost is the Teacher; the Holy 
Ghost is the Advocate. 

Advocate of what, of whom? Well, the Holy 
Ghost is in the world to advocate but one Person, 
namely, Jesus Christ. There is God the Father, 
with God the Son at His right hand conveying to 
the Father the things the Holy Ghost is doing and 
has done for you and for me—Christ presenting 
Himself and presenting His own blood and His 
own vicarious death to the Father as the ground 
on which the Father can rest pardon. Advocate! 
Propitiation—as the ground for redemption. 
What is the Holy Ghost doing? He is represent¬ 
ing Christ and advocating Him as the Son of God, 
to whom I should give my soul in trust, in order 
that I may be saved. 

"The Holy Ghost is here as the Advocate of 


36 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, who 
vicariously died, and whose vicarious death is the 
means by which we can be saved. That is the work 
of the Ploly Ghost. Every man who has offered to 
him anything other than Jesus Christ, has that per¬ 
son, policy, program or cult submitted to him by 
an agent of Antichrist. Never lose sight of the 
fact that there are two advocates in the world. 
One is God, represented by the Third Person of the 
Trinity. The other is the agent of Antichrist, who 
is denying Christ and advocating everything else 
but Christ. Therefore, the Holy Ghost is here 
saying to you: “ Christ died for you. Let Him 
save you.” Satan, in the person of some one else, 
is saying, “ Oh, you don’t have to be saved through 
the blood of Jesus.” One is Antichrist, and the 
other is the Third Person of the Trinity. To 
whom are you going to listen ? 

The Third Person of the Trinity is in the world 
—comforting. What a blessed thought! I am 
speaking now to those who are saved and have the 
blessings of His comforting presence. Precious 
friends, do you need comforting? I do not know 
how to define adequately the word “ Comforter.” 
I frankly admit that it is too big for me. But do 
you need comforting? Are you peevish, fretful, 
opinionated, arrogant, self-righteous? Who is 
going to comfort you? Did you ever have the 
Holy One pick you up? Did you ever have Him 
hold you ? He will do it if you will let Him. And 


THREEFOLD PROGRAM OF TRINITY 37 


at times when you just come through a fierce battle 
with the enemy of souls, how weary, tired, fretful 
and exhausted you are! You know something of 
the awful tension of being in a contest and the 
exhausting reaction which follows. Well, Christ 
was in battle, and the Holy Ghost succored and 
comforted Him; therefore, He will comfort and 
succor you. 

Were you ever lost? If ever a man needs com¬ 
fort it is when he is lost. And he gets lost by 
losing the sense of direction. No man was ever 
lost because the road was not there. And some of 
you lose your way because you lose your sense of 
direction, although you may be within a yard or so 
of the road. You immediately move about around 
in a circle. Others I would ask this: When you 
were lost, who picked you up and brought to your 
remembrance all things that God had done for you ? 
Who gave you the sense of direction? And who 
began to pray with and talk to you? The Holy 
Ghost. 

The valley and the darkness await us all, down 
through them we all must walk. But you have 
never heard of a saint of God falling in the valley. 
There is not a line in Scripture that records a saint 
ever having fallen in the valley. Some fall down 
before they reach the valley. Through the ante¬ 
cedent danger they stumble and fall, but through 
the valley and the shadow of death the Holy Ghost 
makes the pathway light enough. One by one we 


38 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


are going home. Yet the voice of comfort, the 
arms of love, the supernatural support and the 
everlasting blessing are ours, because God loves, 
Christ died, and the Holy Ghost advocates. 

The purpose and program of the Holy Ghost is 
to lift you out of the path of hell, to regenerate 
your soul, to walk through the valley with you, to 
gather you home. Oh, it is a stupendous task to 
save a sinner, but Christ died to do so, and all who 
accept Him may be eternally saved. 


IV 


THE SCARLET LINE 

" Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the 
Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crimson , they 
shall be as wool ”— Isaiah i : 18. 

“And almost all things are by the law purged with 
blood; and without shedding of blood is no remis¬ 
sion ”— Hebrews 9 : 22. 

I N the first part of Isaiah the operation of sin 
and the program of the Gospel are presented. 
In the chapter from which my first text is 
taken you have an outline of the conditions which 
obtained in Judah. The application can be made 
to each individual and to the whole world. The 
writer explains that this people had fallen below 
the status of the animal. The ox recognized his 
master, had never denied his crib, nor been un¬ 
grateful for the provision made for his sustenance. 
But Judah had forgotten God, or rather had 
become indifferent to God, had refused to recog¬ 
nize God as sovereign, had refused to admit re¬ 
sponsibility and accountability to God. The reason 
Judah had become indifferent to these great facts 
was on account of sin. Sin had made the people 
indifferent, careless, callous and rebellious. 


39 


40 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


The same effect of sin is seen today. Men have 
not the ever-controlling consciousness of God’s 
presence and of their accountability to God. The 
result of sin is to deaden the conscience and de¬ 
stroy the recognition of God and His right to reign. 

Let me retrace the scarlet footsteps of sin: 

I. Sin entered the human family through the 
will and affected the whole being. The sorrow of 
the world began at that point. You next witness 
the conflict between the two brothers, Cain and 
Abel, when they were required to offer their sacri¬ 
fices to Almighty God. Abel recognized his duty 
and offered the bloody sacrifice. Cain, because of 
the power of sin over him, rebelled against that 
command and repudiated the authority of God. 
Murder was the result. 

II. Sin continued its mighty work of destruc¬ 
tion. It reached its climax in the world’s cor¬ 
ruption, viciousness and social putrefaction. It 
continued its march until the Flood destroyed the 
corrupt, vicious and licentious social organization. 
Scientists have never been able to efface the marks 
of the Flood. They have not been able to erase the 
water line from the shores of history. Out of that 
condition there emerged one who believed. Going 
on down through the ages we see the marks of sin. 
Between the period of the Flood and the coming 
of Christ we find the most indescribable condition 
of harlotry. We find cities buried beneath their 
own disease, dirt and sin. Where are Nineveh, 


THE SCARLET LINE 


41 


Sodom, Gomorrah, and others? Where are an¬ 
cient Rome and Greece, and the cities of the Middle 
Ages? Sin finished its work, wrought their de¬ 
struction, buried them in their graves of corrup¬ 
tion. Follow on down through the ages. Witness 
the fields of carnage, the battles, wars, prejudices, 
hatreds, strifes, murders, massacres, and you see 
the footprints of sin all the way. Every step of the 
way, in every field of carnage, sin has left bloody 
prints and the ineffaceable marks of destruction. 

When Christ, the Son of God, came to strike the 
deadly blow against the power of sin the world was 
not ready for Him. It did not welcome Him, had 
no place where He could be born. When He was 
born the heavens recognized that the supernatural 
event had taken place. The demons in hell 
trembled, sin recognized that the plan for its ulti¬ 
mate destruction had come into existence. Sin’s 
bloody hand was stretched out to destroy the Babe. 
The same hand that tried to destroy Moses, struck 
at Jesus. It is still striking at the children of men. 
Sin knows but one thing—force, destruction, 
death. Sin has but one objective point—death. 
Sin makes but one footprint, and that a bloody 
footprint. From dying Abel to Calvary’s brow 
sin’s march across the continent of time has been 
one long march of blood, of suffering, of death. 
The scarlet line stretches from the Garden of Eden 
to Mount Calvary. When Jesus Christ, from His 
cradle in the manger, started to Calvary, He started 


42 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


over the bloody tracks of sin. When He sur¬ 
rendered His life on Calvary it was to destroy the 
power of sin. There was no way to destroy it 
except with His own blood. 

III. Behold sin’s crimson march to the land of 
death and damnation! We have not only the foot¬ 
prints of sin, but also the scarlet line of redemption, 
vicarious redemption through the supernatural 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

Why did Abel sacrifice a lamb? Why were 
lambs sacrificed by others? Why were bullocks 
slain? Why was Isaac offered? Why did God 
prepare a lamb and tell Abraham to sacrifice it? 
Why the doves, why all the sacrificial offerings? 
Why did they kill, spill blood and offer the meat as 
a holy sacrifice? There is but one'answer. God 
was teaching the doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice 
of Jesus Christ. There was no vicariousness in the 
slain bullock or lamb. They were the prototypes 
of Christ and of the sacrifice He was to make. 
The reason they were sacrificed was to bring to 
the attention of the people the bloody tracks of sin 
and of the coming vicarious sacrifice—the only 
power to eradicate sin. There was no way by 
which the blood spilled as the result of sin could 
be atoned for, except through the blood spilled by 
Jesus Christ. The only way to change the corrupt 
blood of human nature was through the use of 
blood of Jesus Christ. The ruin wrought by 
sin in the depravity of human blood could be re- 


THE SCARLET LINE 


43 


paired only through the redemptive blood of Jesus 
Christ. The scarlet line of redemption is the line 
that Jesus Christ has hung along the path of man. 

IV. Sin is perfectly logical. It cannot move 
without the shedding of blood. It is rather strange, 
then, that people will undertake to circumscribe sin 
by the processes of environment, education and 
reformation. Sin cannot be prevented from shed¬ 
ding blood. Sin cannot be atoned for except 
through the shedding of blood. Without the shed¬ 
ding of blood there is no remission of sin. Sin 
cannot operate unless it destroys. Sin cannot be 
stopped in its operations except through the con¬ 
structive power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Con¬ 
sequently, the scarlet line of salvation was pro¬ 
vided by Almighty God for the destruction of sin, 
the redemption of man, and the glorification of 
the saint. 

There is no redemption without the shedding of 
blood. Speaking reverently, we can truly say, God 
cannot save except through the shed blood of Jesus 
Christ. God has selected that way by which He 
can pardon, redeem and save the immortal soul. It 
is the only way by which, the soul dead in tres¬ 
passes and sins can be quickened, brought back to 
life and restored to a position of justification before 
God. The mere extinction of the life of Christ 
was not sufficient. Had it been possible for Jesus 
to have fallen asleep on Calvary, no person could 
have been saved. If Christ could have defeated 


44 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


the hour of death, it would have been impossible 
for God to have saved a soul. God cannot reach 
the soul except through the blood of Christ; He 
cannot quicken the soul except by the application 
of that blood. He cannot bring the lost soul back 
to Himself except through the regenerating power 
of the blood of Christ. 

When Jesus Christ spilled His blood on Calvary 
He brought into existence the supernatural appa¬ 
ratus through which the lost soul must go if it 
becomes a new creature. If one were foolish 
enough to ask, “ Could God have made another 
plan?” the complete answer to that question is, 
“ That is none of your business.” There is only 
one thing for you to know—He did not make any 
other plan. He is not going to make any other plan. 
Therefore, by His own act, He is confined to the 
plan produced by the vicarious death of Christ. 
That plan is the plan of the redemptive blood of 
Christ. Sin buried the soul in the bloody grave of 
trespasses. Christ quickened the soul and brought 
it into existence as a redeemed Christian through 
the application of the redemptive blood. Only the 
blood of Christ can wash away the blot of sin. 
Through the redemptive work of Christ sin is not 
merely covered. It is destroyed, the soul is emanci¬ 
pated, the individual Christian comes into existence 
a new-born babe in Christ, freed from the power 
of sin. Jesus Christ did not die to cover my sins. 
He died to save me from sin, and through His 


THE SCARLET LINE 


45 


redemptive, re-creating blood to bring me into ex¬ 
istence as an individual unit in Himself. 

You ask if the Christian is not covered with the 
blood of Christ? No, the Christian is the product 
of the blood of Christ. He is a new creature com¬ 
ing out of the blood of Christ. The Christian is 
clothed in the habiliments of Christ. Christ makes 
the capsule in which the Christian lives, just as the 
Holy Ghost clothed Gideon with Himself, so Christ 
applies the blood and brings the Christian into ex¬ 
istence. The Christian is imbedded in Christ, Christ 
is in and over the Christian. The Holy Ghost re¬ 
generates you, baptizes you into the body of Christ. 
The Holy Ghost takes up His abode in you, and 
through the Holy Ghost Jesus Christ operates and 
directs you. You are clothed upon with the form 
of Christ, and there resides in you the Third Per¬ 
son of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. That is sal¬ 
vation. That kind of salvation is impossible except 
through the blood of Christ. That blood could not 
have been applied had Christ not died. 

We have traced the bloody footprints of sin from 
the Garden of Eden to Calvary’s brow. The scarlet 
line of redemption runs through all of the proto¬ 
types, comes into its glory in Christ’s sacrifice, and 
is manifested throughout the life of the Christian 
and the period of the Church. Come to the Holy 
Communion Table and see the emblems, witness 
the scarlet cord. In the scarlet drops of the juice 
of the grape you see the emblem of the everlasting. 


46 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


saving blood of Jesus Christ. In the Holy Com¬ 
munion you hear Him say, “ Do this in remem¬ 
brance of me till I come again.” This scarlet cord 
running through the prototypes, manifested in 
Christ, typified in the Holy Communion, reaches to 
the very throne of God, and along this line Christ 
will come again to manifest Himself and show the 
scarred hands with which the scarlet line was tied 
to a lost soul, and by which that lost soul was 
lifted back to God. 

When Christ comes to reign supreme He will 
strike the final blow destroying the works of the 
devil and driving Satan and sin into the everlasting 
hell prepared for the devil and his angels. At that 
hour the blood of God spilled by Christ will strike 
the fatal blow and sin will be destroyed, its bloody 
footprints effaced, and the scarlet cord of redemp¬ 
tion will make the necklace of glory hanging from 
the shoulders of every saint. By the power of the 
blood of Jesus Christ, Satan shall be cast into the 
pit and the pit eternally sealed, after which there 
will be no more sin, and no more death. Jesus 
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, through 
His own blood will conquer. 

V. After Jesus Christ had risen from the dead 
He stood by one who would touch Him. He said, 
“ Touch me not. It is not yet time.” The reason 
for that statement was that He had not entered the 
heavens to present His blood-work to His Father. 
The scarlet cord running through the prototypes, 


THE SCARLET LINE 


47 


manifested by Christ, seen in the Holy Commun¬ 
ion, had to find its last resting place at the right 
hand of God. 

The ascension of Christ was absolutely necessary 
in order that Christ might present His blood spilled 
for the redemption of man. When Christ pre¬ 
sented to God, His Father, His sacrifice of blood, 
He in effect said, “ My Father, I have accom¬ 
plished the redemption. Here is my blood spilled 
to satisfy the law and eternal justice. It is a suf¬ 
ficient reason and ground for you to proclaim the 
redeemed soul justified. I present my blood sacri¬ 
ficed for whoever accepts me as 'your reason for 
accepting that man and proclaiming him just and 
giving him a position before you which can 
never be affected by sin.” Christ, in effect, said, 
“ My blood has washed, regenerated, created, and 
brought into existence a child against whom you 
have no charge.” 

Christ is the Mediator, sitting at the right hand 
of God, holding ever in the presence of God His 
blood as the ground for the everlasting justification 
of the man who accepts His vicarious death as 
God’s means of salvation. That is supernatural 
salvation. 

How silly it is for men to say, “Quit your 
meanness and do right.” That suggestion was 
presented in the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters 
of Isaiah. Through the prophet God said, “ Come 
now, let us reason together; though your sins be as 


48 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


scarlet, they shall be washed in the blood of the 
Son, and you shall be made as white as snow.” It 
is impossible for resolutions, rituals, the blood of 
bullocks and the sacrifices of lambs to effect human 
reformation. It is not reformation the world 
needs. It is regeneration. There is no way by 
which regeneration can be effected except by the 
quickening, regenerating power of the blood of 
Jesus Christ. That is salvation. 

You cannot save yourselves. There is no human 
power or agency whereby your salvation can be 
effected. There is no way by which you can 
escape the bloody footprints of sin, except through 
the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ 
is the only means of salvation, the only sacrifice 
that God will accept. 


V 

THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS 

“ The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Pre¬ 
pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert 
a highway for our God ”— Isaiah 40:3. 

" Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall pre¬ 
pare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, 
shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger 
of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall 
come, saith the Lord of hosts — Malachi 3:1. 

“ Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and 
shall call his name Immanuel .”— Isaiah 7:14. 

T HE most important subject that could pos¬ 
sibly be discussed is the Virgin Birth of 
Jesus. It is the battle ground of belief, and 
within the confines of its discussion are to be found 
two contending forces—the enemies of God, and 
the children of God. 

The enemies of God are making an attack upon 
the Virgin Birth, they are trying to discredit the 
records. It produces confusion in the minds of 
the people, and prevents them from accepting, 
believing in and being benefited by this great truth. 

God’s children know, experimentally as well as 
historically, the truth of the doctrine. They have 
experienced its blessedness, and are not shaken in 
their faith nor in their conception of the truth. 


49 


50 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


You ask, why is it the battle ground and why is 
it so important? It is not important to the saint, 
you might say, because he is redeemed; but, it is 
important to the saint in his message to the lost 
world; and it is absolutely essential to the unsaved 
man because he cannot be saved if the Virgin Birth 
is not true. If the statements as to the birth of 
Jesus are not infallible, and if He were not bom of 
a virgin, then it is impossible for one to be saved. 
Therefore, the whole plan of salvation is involved, 
and the salvation of men is at stake in this fight. I 
am very glad the fight is on; that the battle is rag¬ 
ing, because, in the days gone by, while we were 
asleep Satan sowed tares in Christendom, and 
there are those in the visible organization, known 
as the church militant, who are unsaved. They 
are, no doubt, rationalists, direct agents of Satan. 
If they want to fight God, and if this doctrine is 
the battleground, then, when we have finished with 
them, if they have any conscience at all, we hope 
they will leave the visible ecclesiastical organiza¬ 
tions and go out into the world into the synagogue 
of Satan and stay there, for they most assuredly 
have no place in the real Church of Jesus Christ. 

Now, there are two great truths that must be 
taken into consideration in discussing the Virgin 
Birth of Jesus: First, it is prophetically stated. 
Secondly, it is historically stated. 

In the Old Testament it is prophetically stated, 
prophetically outlined, prophetically promised, and 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS 


51 


prophetically determined. Now, let us see if that 
is true. One great writer on the subject has said 
that God put this prophetic truth as a blazing star 
between the Cherubim when our first parents were 
driven out of the Garden. Prophetic utterance 
states that the seed of woman shall bruise the 
serpent’s head. That is a prophetic statement of 
fact, and promise. It must come true or fall of its 
own weakness. Is it false, or is it a fact—which ? 
Will it be possible for the seed of woman? Which 
woman? is the great question. We find prophecy 
begins to define which woman—not only the seed 
of woman, but the seed of Abraham. Prophetic 
utterance says the seed of woman, the seed of 
Abraham; the seed of Isaac. And then the line 
begins to lengthen. We find that Isaac had two 
sons, and we wonder through which one this pro¬ 
phetic truth is to come. Scripture states it shall be 
the seed of Jacob. 

Again, we find that there must be more ex¬ 
planation, because Jacob had more than one son, 
and we find that it must be through the seed of 
Judah, the fourth son. We get a little closer, and 
there must be another definition. It must come 
through the seed of Judah, through the seed of 
David, that this seed of the woman must come in 
unbroken line and through this royal family in 
unbroken steps. And in these unbroken steps, and 
through this unbroken line prophetic history, pro¬ 
phetic promise and prophetic truth portray that He 


52 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


must come through this regal family, and from 
Him this royalty will never depart. 

The divine heir who is to be born must be bom 
in Bethlehem—Bethlehem of Judah and of David. 
This was the divinely selected spot. He must have 
His forerunner; and He must be called Immanuel, 
which when literally interpreted means, “ God with 
Us—Divine-Human Being.” That is the meaning 
of Immanuel—Divine-Human. 

Those prophetic utterances are there, and no Jew 
on earth can deny them, and no one who can read 
history can deny them—they are there. Well, they 
must be there for a definite reason. They must 
have been placed there by Almighty God. They 
were supernaturally written, they reveal a super¬ 
natural face and a supernatural line, for the 
purpose of bringing a supernatural person into 
existence. What are you going to do with such 
prophetic utterances? Prophecy, infallible proph¬ 
ecy, states that a virgin shall give birth to this 
person I have outlined in this line of genealogy. 
What are you going to do with it? You cannot 
destroy it. Some men have tried to. They begin, 
as one great writer has said, by saying that it is one 
of the most unscientific statements ever made. 
Why? Because it is in violation of all formulas, 
doctrines, etc., that can be taught. Now is it pos¬ 
sible for this individual to come into existence with 
only a mother? We grant, for the sake of argu¬ 
ment, that it is just exactly as they say—the most 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS 


53 


marvelous statement ever made and the most mar¬ 
velous fact ever announced. But Scripture does 
not state that Jesus Christ was without a father. 
All history recognizes Mary as the mother. The 
battle is around the question of the Fatherhood of 
Jesus Christ. 

The scientific world says to speak of the Virgin 
Birth is to speak of an unscientific fact. We 
frankly say to you that, so far as the scientific 
method is concerned, it does contradict it. But that 
is not the reason He is of virgin birth. Thank God 
it is an unscientific fact in the language in which 
you use the term. You have proved the case. But 
Scripture, my friends, does not so state it. You 
say it is unthinkable, as certain writers have said 
it is, that one child could come into existence 
without a father. Scripture does not say that He 
came without a Father. Scripture specifically 
states who the Father is. But, you say, this doc¬ 
trine we are now discussing is a useless doctrine. 
It is the most important doctrine ever presented to 
the people. Why? First of all, the credibility of 
Scripture rests on this doctrine. The whole ques¬ 
tion of the credibility of Scripture rests on this 
doctrine. Why? Prophetic utterances state that 
He would come in the line of which I have spoken. 
Prophetic utterances state He would come of a 
virgin; prophetic utterances said He would have a 
forerunner; prophetic utterances said He would be 
born in Bethlehem; prophetic utterances said He 


54 , 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


would be called Immanuel. Now is that true, or 
is it false? If it is true, then all Scripture stands 
as the infallible Word of God. If it is false, the 
whole Bible is false. Is that not important? 

Again, some one has said the Scripture does 
not announce His paternal side. Scripture does 
nothing else but announce it. What does Scripture 
say? It says that He is the Son of God; states, all 
the way through, that He will be born of a virgin 
and will be the Son of God. Scripture announced 
His Father’s side. Scripture stated that the Holy 
Ghost conceived His body in the womb of the 
Virgin. But, you say again, that Scripture seems 
to contradict. Luke traces His genealogy through 
the mother. Matthew traces it through the father. 
Matthew speaks of the legal father in legal terms 
of the census, and speaks of Joseph back through 
the line I have mentioned—all the way back. Duke 
speaks of it through Mary, David, and all the way 
back. But, one critic has said, there seems to be a 
question. Well, when Joseph is mentioned in one 
place as having two fathers, Matthew names the 
father that begat him and his father-in-law. Duke 
traces through Mary and recognizes the son-in-law 
position. Scripture mentions both. Why? In 
order that it might be possible for anyone to trace 
the genealogy of Christ. Scripture states the rela¬ 
tionship of Joseph as a son begotten and a son-in- 
law, but nowhere does Scripture speak of Joseph as 
being the father of Jesus Christ. There is not a 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS 55 

line in Scripture that has ever intimated that 
Joseph is His father. But, every line speaks of 
Mary as the mother. What else? Every line in 
Scripture in which the statement is made speaks of 
God as being the Father of Jesus Christ. Not only 
did God say that He was the Father, but He never 
said or intimated anything else. Why did not God 
on the day of the baptism say: “ He is the son of 
Joseph, in whom I am well pleased?” Scripture 
speaks of the only-begotten Son of God, the first- 
begotten Son of God. 

Again: Jesus Christ at no time mentioned, or in 
any way intimated that He was the son of Joseph. 
He says He is the Son of God, and never intimates 
anything else. There is not a single line anywhere 
in Holy Writ indicating that Joseph ever claimed 
to be the father of Jesus Christ. 

Some one is going to say—has already said—did 
not Christ say that He was the Son of Man? Yes; 
doesn’t Scripture say that He was the Son of man ? 
Is it not admitted that He is the Son of man? But, 
it does not say any specific man. Why ? And why 
does Jesus speak of Himself as the Son of Man 
and the Son of God? Is it possible for one to be 
the Son of man and the Son of God at the same 
time? Yes, if the Virgin Birth be a fact. That 
is the only way by which one can be the Son of 
man and the Son of God at the same time. But 
how ? He must have a divine father and a human 
mother, and, by having a divine Father and a 


56 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


human mother He is the Son of God and the Son 
of man. How? By that process which Scripture 
shows forth—that like begets like. Is that not 
true? Is it not possible if God touched the earth 
and made Adam, and touched Adam and made 
Eve, that the sovereign God of this universe could 
touch the womb of the Virgin and conceive the 
body of Jesus Christ ? That is the only way it could 
be possible for Him to be the Son of God and the 
Son of man at the same time. When you speak of 
the Virgin Birth you are speaking of the great plan, 
for that is the way of the Incarnation. But, some 
one is going to say: “Then Jesus Christ did not 
come by generation.” He did not. He came by 
the extraordinary process of divine conception— 
conceived by the Holy Ghost. 

Now turn back to the question of the importance 
of this great doctrine. On the fact of the Virgin 
Birth rests the credibility of Scripture. On the 
fact of the Virgin Birth rests the sinlessness of 
Christ. If you are going to bring Christ into ex¬ 
istence with a human father and mother, if Incar¬ 
nation is to come about by the natural process of 
generation, then the Son of man must come with a 
sinful body. But, being of a divine Father and a 
human mother, His body being by divine concep¬ 
tion and not by generation, He takes on Himself 
the human form without inheriting by generation, 
the sinfulness of nature. If He had inherited, then 
He could not have assumed sin. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS 57 

Again: the Virgin Birth of Christ makes it pos¬ 
sible for Christ to be the Redeemer, and, it was 
impossible for a human being to be the Redeemer. 
The Epistle to the Hebrews states that He was 
clothed with human form, that He was made flesh, 
that it was conceived for Him for the purpose and 
in order that He, the Son of God, might redeem 
men. There could have been no redemption if the 
Virgin Birth had not occurred. Oh, that precious 
truth! That God conceived for Him a body that 
He might come into existence, born of a virgin, 
free from sin, and that He might stand before God 
possessing divine nature and offer sacrifice suf¬ 
ficient that men might be redeemed. Only God 
could suffer for you sufficiently to redeem you 
from sin. Only God in human form, incarnated 
by the conceiving power of the Holy Ghost, could 
vicariously die for you. So, not only is the credi¬ 
bility of Scripture resting on the truth, but the 
redemptive work of Christ is resting on this truth. 
The sinlessness of Christ and His vicarious death 
rest on the truth of the Virgin Birth. Is it not 
worth fighting for? 

Extraordinary? Yes. It could not have been 
ordinary. Of divine origin, Christ could not have 
been merely human. Oh, it could not have been 
otherwise. The everlasting Son of God was born 
of the Virgin that He might take on Himself our 
form and in that form die for us in order that we 
might live in His divine form for ever and ever. 


58 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Oh, this blessed Christ, our everlasting Redeemer, 
is doubly precious because of this fact Will you 
take Him as your Savior? He is yours if you will 
accept Him. He came to save you. The super¬ 
natural Son of God, supernaturally incarnated, 
supernaturally sacrificed, supernaturally raised, is 
supernaturally coming, will supernaturally gather 
you unto Himself, because He is the Son of God. 
Will you take Him? “ Believe on the L,ord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” 


VI 

CHRIST, THE SUM OF ALL THINGS 


“And Abraham said, My son, God will provide him¬ 
self a lamb for a burnt offering ” —Genesis 22 : 8 . 

L ET us think of Christ, trace a few of His 
steps, consider some of His manifestations, 
recite some of the things He did, some He 
is doing, and some He will do, in order that we may 
focus our minds on Him—the sum of all things, 
the Lamb prepared by Almighty God. In thus 
thinking of Him we will be led away from men 
who are trying to discredit Him and make the 
world believe He is not the Son of God. You ask, 
and that reasonably—“ Why are they trying to dis¬ 
credit Christ ? ” There is but one answer: They 
are the agents of Satan. He is trying to discredit 
Christ; he is striking at Him all the while. His 
agents, under his direction, are doing everything in 
their power to discredit Him, too. 

It is our business to present Christ, the Lamb 
prepared by Almighty God for the salvation of the 
world. When Abraham said to his son, “ God will 
provide for himself a lamb for the burnt offering/’ 
he gave utterance to the fact on which rests every¬ 
thing concerning our salvation. Christ is the 
Lamb, God prepared Him, and that preparation 


59 


60 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


was made in the eternal counsels of the Trinity.* 
Let us consider the steps in the preparation:, 

I. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, had an ex¬ 
istence prior to His coming to earth robed in 
human flesh. He existed coevally and co-equally 
with God, was a member of the eternal council of 
the Trinity, and in that council was a party to the 
preparation which brought Him into existence as 
the Lamb of God to be slain for the redemption of 
man. Christ was with God, and was equal to God, 
and as one of the Trinity, determined the eternal 
decree of God, acquiesced in the plan and became, 
under its terms, the Lamb of God, prepared for the 
redemption of the world. 

The Scriptures state that before the foundations 
of the world were laid Jesus was thinking of man¬ 
kind. In the marvelous activities of the Trinity, 
the work of creating all things was assigned to 
Jesus Christ. All things were made by Him, nor 
was anything made without Him. He made all 
worlds, and all things in all worlds. He made you 
and me, and He made all things to accomplish His 
definite purposes and manifested in His handiwork 
His creative power. 

II. Christ revealed Himself to us in an infallible 
revelation. He was not only with God, He was 
God, and became flesh manifesting God—the liv¬ 
ing, incarnate, eternal Son of God. But before He 
came He wrote, not only in the sparkling stars, 
running brooks, blazing suns and blushing flowers. 


CHRIST THE SUM OF ALL THINGS 61 


but He wrote by plenary inspiration His infallible 
Word of Divine revelation. 

III. In due course of time Christ, the Lamb of 
God, was sacrificed to redeem men from sin. 
Through His vicarious sacrifice and death there 
was provided, delivered and sacrificed the Lamb 
prepared by Almighty God. Prior to that sacrifice 
types were in evidence foreshadowing His sacrifice. 
Not all the blood of bulls and goats slain on Jewish 
altars could wash away one stain or mark of guilt. 
Therefore, the eternal Son of God, was incarnated, 
lived, and surrendered Himself as the God-prepared 
Lamb to be slain for the redemption of man. 
When Jesus Christ became the Incarnate Son and 
started from the cradle to the Cross, from the 
Cross through the grave back to the right hand of 
“the majesty on high,” He took the successive 
steps that were in the eternal decree of God, pre¬ 
paring a way whereby a lost soul might come back 
into its relationship with God as a redeemed unit. 
Jesus Christ was God’s best gift, God’s only gift, 
the sum total of all of God’s gifts for man’s re¬ 
demption. Listen to God say, “ This is my beloved 
Son.” Listen to Abraham as he says to Isaac, 
“ God will prepare himself a lamb for the burnt 
offering.” No one else will prepare it but Al¬ 
mighty God. It will be of supernatural pre¬ 
paration, of supernatural origin, and will be 
supernatural in its sacrifice to produce a super¬ 
natural redemption. Look into the cradle in yonder 


62 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


manger and see the answer to Isaac’s question, 
“ Father, where is the lamb ? ” There in the 
manger-cradle lies the Lamb. 

Listen to John the Baptist saying, as he points 
to Jesus, “ Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the sin of the world.” Look into the face of 
Christ hanging on yonder tree, and ask yourself the 
question, “ Is there anything else God could do ? ” 
and the answer will come back —“ There is nothing 
else.” God so loved that He prepared and gave His 
only Son—not one of His sons; not His son in 
substitution for some one else, but His only Son, 
His only gift, His only possible preparation—His 
only Lamb. There isn’t anything else God could do 
or have done. 

Listen to Christ as He says: “ I am the Way, the 
Truth and the Life.” There is no other way, no 
other door. Listen to Him after He has been 
placed upon the Cross, the blood streaming from 
His hands, His feet, His side, proclaiming, “ It is 
finished.” The Godhead is exhausted; the only 
sacrifice has been made; there is nothing else to be 
done. The work of redemption is complete. 

Christ is God’s answer to every question. He is 
the sum total of all things involving the salvation 
of a soul. He is the finished Lamb, the finished 
sacrifice, the complete salvation, the eternal glory. 
They took that precious body from the tree; loving 
hands wrapped it in garments of love, and buried it. 
Over the earth settled gloom and darkness. Christ 


CHRIST THE SUM OF ALL THINGS 63 


had said, “ I will arise on the third day.” The sign 
of Jonah is the sign of God’s eternal promise that 
the sacrificed Lamb is sufficient unto the resurrec¬ 
tion. On that bright, first Easter morning the 
empty tomb gave a complete answer to prophecy. 
It was the fulfilment of every promise, the vindi¬ 
cation of Christ’s sacrifice, and God’s answer to the 
question of immortality and the resurrection of the 
body. In His resurrection Christ answered the 
question, “ Shall the body live again?” Without 
the empty tomb, without the hope of the resur¬ 
rection, it would be impossible for any one to re¬ 
main sane. Repudiate and deny God’s provision 
for the salvation of man and His provision for the 
resurrection of the body and you make it possible 
for insanity to increase and for hopeless gloom to 
settle over the mind. Tell a fellow creature that 
he must die like the beast of the field and remain 
dead and why should reason keep its throne? God 
provided the Lamb on Calvary for the salvation of 
the soul, and that sacrifice is the fulcrum that lifts 
the body from the grave and robes it in immortal¬ 
ity and eternal light. 

IV. Not only did Christ rise from the dead and 
guarantee the resurrection of every human body in 
the world, but He told of another preparation. “ I 
am going away to prepare a place for you,” He de¬ 
clared. The Lamb, prepared by Almighty God, did 
not end His work in His one act of sacrifice, but 
He continued it by providing for the eternal se- 


64 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


curity of the soul and the preparation for the re- 
deemed’s everlasting abode with Himself in heav¬ 
enly mansions. The sacrifice was not just for the 
redemption of the soul, it included the redemption 
of the body, and the preparation of mansions in 
the Father’s house for every one who accepts 
Christ and the sacrifice He made. Do you ever 
sit down and contemplate Heaven, and ask yourself 
what it means to you? It is a place, a locality, 
definite, fixed and eternal. In it your individuality, 
your identity are all preserved. The beautiful 
mansion is your final and everlasting home. You 
sometimes see a young couple looking for an 
earthly home, examining different houses, select¬ 
ing with great care and concern their place of 
abode. But this is something altogether different. 
God has prepared the Lamb, who has gone away 
to prepare your home, to select your special and 
specific mansion. The title to it is yours; you are 
absolutely sure of it; there is no doubt about it; no 
one can prevent you from inhabiting it. What a 
glorious day it will be when you cross its threshold! 

“ In my Father’s house are many mansions. If 
it were not so I would have told you. I go to pre¬ 
pare a place for you, finish it, mark it and keep it 
for you.” Beautiful home! It will not be long 
before you enter the mansion prepared by Christ 
for you. He made it with His own hands for you. 
Remember, He made it for you . 

V. Jesus said, “ I am coming back for you, and 


CHRIST THE SUM OF ALL THINGS 65 


will gather you unto Myself.” While He is away 
preparing the home, He is also at the right hand 
of God acting as your mediator, talking to the 
Father about you, keeping you every day, sending 
forth the unending stream of His grace, giving you 
a daily demonstration of His protection, and assur¬ 
ing you of His eternal provision He has made for 
you. He knows definitely when He is coming for 
you. He and the Father know. No one else 
knows. But He is coming. That is enough for us 
to know. He is coming for us, and He will gather 
us into our mansions, where He will dwell with us 
for evermore. 

When the soul of the Christian leaves the body it 
goes immediately home to Christ, and is clothed in 
a spiritual enswathement and dwells in a spiritual 
habiliment until the Morning of the Resurrection. 
When this human body is raised from the dead, a 
resurrected and glorified body, the soul will again 
enter it and the entire being becomes an immortal 
unit and will come back accompanied by Christ, to 
reign with Him on the earth for a thousand years. 

Behold the progressive stages of this great plan: 
The eternal Son of God was with God; He came 
to earth, the Incarnate Son of God; on Calvary’s 
hill He was sacrificed as the Lamb of God; He 
arose from the dead; He ascended to the right hand 
of the Father; He prepared the home for the re¬ 
deemed; He is coming back, to gather them unto 
Himself; they will dwell with Him for ever and 


66 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ever. He, the Lamb of God, slain before the 
foundation of the world, prepared by Almighty 
God, can do, is doing, and will do for the re¬ 
demption, the security, and the eternal blessedness 
of the redeemed everything necessary for complete 
accomplishment. 

Have I, here, told you something about Christ, 
the Lamb of God? Do you believe in such a 
Christ? Will you accept Him as your Savior? If 
you will, all that I have touched upon is yours, and 
all the glorious benefits are yours. Accept Him, 
confess Him, unite with His people and enter into 
His joy, and after a little while you will participate 
in His glory. 


VII 

THE DISPOSITION OF JESUS 

" What shall I do, then, with Jesus?” 

—Matthew 27:22. 

P ILATE’S question had to be answered by 
himself. It has to be answered by every 
man for himself, and every woman for her¬ 
self. It had to be answered by the Jews and 
Gentiles, by the mob that surrounded Pilate's 
judgment-seat. Men and women of all nationali¬ 
ties, all individuals of every color, rank, station and 
condition must answer that question, “ What shall 
I do, then, with Jesus? ” Pilate, officially and per¬ 
sonally, had to answer it. There was no way by 
which he could escape it. He endeavored to trans¬ 
fer the responsibility. He washed his hands and 
asked others to assume his guilt. Yet in his heart 
he knew that his decision was final. There was no 
power, human or otherwise, by which he could 
evade or escape the results of his decision. 

The same thing was true of the Jews. They had 
to answer. They did answer. They assumed the 
responsibility of the disposition they made of 
Jesus,, and every wandering Jew on earth, today, 
is a result of that decision. His blood rested upon 
them, it rests upon them today. There is no power 


67 


68 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


in this universe by which that guilt can be washed 
from their souls, except by the very blood they 
sacrificed,—the blood of Jesus. The verdict was 
final; it fell upon them; it rests upon them. There 
is no power in this universe by which the Jew can 
be stabilized, organized or nationalized except by 
and through the blood of Jesus Christ. Every Jew 
is a living testimony to the effect of the decision 
made in far-off Jerusalem, centuries ago. 

The question is still personal. It must be an¬ 
swered by each individual, not by a nation, not by 
a mob, but by each separate personality. The 
question is put to you—“ What will you do with 
Jesus?” and you must put it to your own con¬ 
science. “What shall I do, then, with Jesus, the 
eternal Son of God ? ” How are you going to 
answer it? 

I. If you undertake to say you will assume the 
tremendous responsibility of disposing of Jesus, 
your assumption is beyond your ability. If you 
mean by that disposition that you classify Him as 
a man, treat Him as a teacher, a philosopher, look 
upon Him as the best man the world ever pro¬ 
duced, treat Him simply as a human being and set 
Him to one side as such, you are undertaking to 
decide something which is beyond human ability to 
decide. He is God, and cannot be reduced by your 
decision to the plane of a mere man. Your own 
words convict you when you say He is the most 
perfect man who ever lived. Why is He the most 


THE DISPOSITION OF JESUS 


69 


perfect man? Because He was sinless. Why was 
He sinless ? Because He refused to commit sin, or 
because He was inherently without sin? There is 
but one answer. He was the eternal Son of God, 
born of the Virgin Mary. If He was the most 
perfect man who ever lived it was because He was 
God. You would have to be God to disprove that 
He was not God. When you undertake to make 
Him a mere man, you are undertaking to do some¬ 
thing beyond human power. 

II. If you undertake to say you will dispose of 
Jesus by just putting Him out of your thought, you 
are undertaking an impossibility. You cannot put 
Jesus out of your thinking. You cannot even take 
Him out of the dating of your letter, or your daily 
routine. You cannot dismiss Christ from your 
thoughts. I care not whether you are the most 
brilliant man on earth, or whether you live in the 
jungles of Africa, you cannot dismiss the thought 
of the existence of God, nor can you, living in a 
land of civilization and enlightenment, dismiss 
from your mind Jesus Christ. 

III. You may say: “ I will have nothing to do 
with Him. I will wash my hands of Him.” Well, 
you cannot do that. He is before you. You can¬ 
not make Him leave you; you cannot take Him out 
of your thought; you cannot take Him out of your 
vision; you cannot move Him out of your road. 
He is there. The very fact of your saying you will 
have nothing to do with Him, is an act whereby 


70 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


you are undertaking to handle Him, to deal with 
Him, to come in contact with Him, to dispose of 
Him. You cannot evade the disposing of Him, 
and the very act of so doing brings you into direct 
and vital contact with Him. When you say that 
you will have nothing to do with Him, you are 
giving your answer to God, the eternal sovereign 
of this universe. You are saying to God, “ I will 
have nothing to do with your Son, Jesus Christ.” 

In that very statement you are taking the place 
of Christ, and standing before the sovereign God 
of this universe stripped of all the protecting 
power of Jesus, and in that position the stone 
which you have rejected crushes you. God would 
say to you in answer to that statement that you 
must then be perfect and keep the law perfectly if 
you would stand before Him in Christ’s stead. 
But, you are not perfect, and you cannot keep His 
law. What are you going to do? In that con¬ 
nection let me whisper to you, “ Outside of Christ, 
God is a consuming fire.” In other words, every 
individual who takes his position before God, out¬ 
side of Christ, stand bare in his own unrighteous¬ 
ness, tainted with sin, cursed with unbelief, and 
must therefore take the consequences of God’s eter¬ 
nal justice and judgment. There is no mercy that 
can be shown one who rejects Christ. What are 
you going to do about it ? 

If you are going to stand on the isolated rock of 
legality, then you must be perfect. You cannot 


THE DISPOSITION OF JESUS 


71 


mix law and grace. You cannot add so much as 
the weight of one hair of your head to grace. If 
you can make any contribution to grace, then it is 
not grace. No man unaided can keep the law. No 
one can stand before God. He who rejects Christ 
must meet the cold, stubborn justice of eternal 
righteousness. 

IV. You ask again, “ What shall I do, then, 
with Jesus? ” I reply, there is but one answer you 
should make—You should say, “ He is the everlast¬ 
ing Son of God.” You should reply, “ I accept Him 
as my Savior; He came into the world to die for 
me; He is my Lord; I believe Him to be the Son of 
God, the Savior of the world; I know that He died 
and rose again from the dead. I know that He 
offered Himself for my sins; He is my substitute— 
born of a virgin, crucified on the Cross, raised from 
the dead, ascended to the Father, sitting at the 
right hand of God— h£ is my savior.” In such an 
acceptance of Him you have imparted to you His 
righteousness, you are formed a new creature in 
Christ Jesus, you come into the position before 
God of the redeemed. God, having punished 
Christ for you, can proclaim you just, and through 
the meritorious work of Christ you are justified. 
You can then stand before God, in Christ, without 
fear. Looking into the face of Christ you can, 
with Him, speak to God and call Him Father. 

In that answer you are not disposing of Christ, 
you are accepting Him. I repeat, there is but one 


72 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


answer to the question, “ What shall I do, then, 
with Jesus ? ” and that is, “ I accept Him, I believe 
Him, I trust Him, I love Him, I am His, He is 
mine, we are one.” He was not ashamed of you. 
Though you were lost in sin, He came to find you. 
Though you were dead in trespasses, He died that 
you might be made alive. Though you rejected 
Him, He rose that you might rise. He loved you, 
He gave Himself for you, all He asks is that you 
accept Him. “ Behold, I stand at the door and 
knock,” He declares. You cannot drive Him away, 
you cannot dispose of Him. You can let Him 
stand at the door of your heart and knock until 
life is extinct, and having thus refused Him admis¬ 
sion, which means that you have rejected Him, 
you can go into everlasting hell. On the other 
hand, you can do the sensible thing—you can open 
the door of your acceptance, you can embrace Him, 
you can be redeemed by Him, you can have Him in 
you, and with you, and at last dwell with Him 
forever. 

Jesus prepares a table for you in the presence of 
your enemies. He comes and prepares a meal for 
you; He serves you. What are you going to do 
with Him ? Are you going to make one with that 
mob in front of Pilate and attempt to re-crucify 
Him, assuming the guilt of that crucifixion, pour¬ 
ing the blood of condemnation upon your own 
soul? Or, are you going to take Him as the Son 
of God, the Savior of men? Are you going to 


THE DISPOSITION OF JESUS 


73 


accept Him as your substitute, take His vicarious 
death as the sufficient answer to the challenge of 
sin? If you accept Him, He has said, “Confess 
me before men, and I will confess you before the 
angels.” Listen to Christ as He proclaims through 
the courts of heaven, “ This man who has accepted 
me as his Savior is now the redeemed of God.” 
Listen to Christ as He introduces you to God, as 
He talks with the Lather about you. What are you 
going to do with such a Jesus? 

What is your attitude towards such a Savior? 
What is your answer to the question, “ What shall 
I do, then, with Jesus?” I beg you to accept 
Him. He alone can save you, and in your accept¬ 
ance His redemption is instantaneous, personal and 
everlasting. 


VIII 


THE APPROACH OF SATAN 

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not 
surely die .”— Genesis 3 : 4. 

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed 
into an angel of light .”— 2 Corinthians ii : 14. 

I F there is any one who sincerely and truly 
doubts the existence of Satan, then he, or she, 
is either mentally incompetent, or he is abso¬ 
lutely ignorant of the existence of the Word of 
God. How one can doubt the existence of Satan 
is beyond the comprehension of a reasoning mind. 

It is logically impossible for a sane person to 
doubt the existence of God. If God exists, Satan 
exists. We know God exists. It is equally certain 
that Satan exists and that his personality exists. 
These two stubborn and eternal facts are ever 
before us: The consciousness of the existence of 
God, and the persistent fact of the existence of 
Satan. Man’s experience is an infallible proof of 
the existence of Satan, and no man lives a day 
without vital and direct contact with him. 

Those who are regenerated and in possession of 
the supernatural power given them in the hour of 
regeneration are aided by the Holy Ghost to reject 
and to drive away Satan; but, they have to come 


74 


THE APPROACH OF SATAN 


75 


in contact with him before they can defeat him. 
Satan approaches every one. 

There is another stubborn fact: Satan never 
tempts a wicked man. An unsaved, lost individual 
is never tempted by Satan, because Satan controls 
him, directs him, lives in him—Satan has him. 
Therefore, there is no necessity to tempt him. He 
could not become any more the subject of Satan if 
he committed manifold crimes each hour of his 
life. Therefore, Satan never tempts a wicked man 
to do a wrong. He directs the wicked to carry out 
his plans of rejecting God, striking at Christ, re¬ 
pudiating the law and defying the Holy Ghost. 
But, the acts of the wicked, under the direction of 
Satan, are all performed as direct attacks upon 
Christ. The wicked never do wrong as the result 
of temptation. 

Satan operates the unsaved man. The Holy 
Ghost operates and directs the regenerated man— 
the Christian. In the soul of the regenerated, born- 
again Christian the Holy Ghost lives. In the soul 
of the unsaved, unregenerated, lost man Satan 
operates. Therefore, I repeat, Satan does not need 
to tempt the unsaved man. He simply operates 
him. 

Satan tempts the righteous man, and if the 
righteous man yields it is because of the efforts of 
Satan. He tempts the righteous man in order that 
he may break down his spiritual influence, destroy 
his prayer-power and interfere with his communion 


76 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


with Cod. Satan tempts the righteous man, the 
Christian, in order that he may weaken his in¬ 
fluence and power on the world. 

There are three powers and personalities: (1) 
The natural, exercised by man in his routine life; 
(2) The superhuman powers exercised by Satan 
over man; (3) The supernatural, exercised by Al¬ 
mighty God in His moral government and for the 
regeneration of man. 

We have natural powers, but are confronted with 
superhuman powers exercised by Satan. We are 
offered the supernatural powers of Almighty God, 
manifested in Jesus Christ, through His plan of 
salvation in order to combat the enemy of our souls. 

I am talking, now, about the superhuman power 
exercised by Satan. This superhuman power comes 
in direct touch and contact with the individual every 
day. There isn’t any device that Satan cannot 
create or use; there isn’t any strategy known to his 
superior wisdom that he does not employ, in order 
that he may attack Christ, destroy the influence of 
the Christian, and rob him of his power. Satan 
approaches one from the rear, and attacks him on 
both flanks. He comes in direct contact with 
men. He approaches them through the ambitions, 
through the religious or the aesthetic nature, and 
always through gates of the soul that are insuf¬ 
ficiently guarded and carelessly locked. Satan ap¬ 
proaches the gate that is most easily entered. 

I. When Eve said to Satan, “We are forbidden 


THE APPROACH OF SATAN 


77 


to eat of this fruit. If we eat of it we will die,” 
Satan said, “ You shall not surely die.” He was 
entering through the gate of ambition, through the 
gate of uncontrollable desire to be supreme both in 
wisdom and power. Satan heard the cry of her 
soul—“ If I could only be as God.” Satan replied, 
“ Fear not, you shall not die.” All the way down 
the ages, right to the present moment, he has been 
trying to get people to deny and disbelieve that sin 
will produce death. He has been trying to make 
people believe that facts are not facts, that realities 
are not realities, that sin is not sin, and that death 
will not ensue if law is violated. There are large 
groups of people completely under his control. 
They are continually saying, “ Sin is not sin, it is 
only a mental action; death is not death, it is only 
a passing; there is no such place as hell; you can¬ 
not die.” They are doing exactly what Satan and 
Eve did back in the Garden of Eden, thousands of 
years ago. They have made no progress. They 
are extremely stupid. They are premeditated per¬ 
jurers when they deny the stubborn fact of sin, the 
fact of death, and the fact of hell as the abode of 
the damned. In one's agony, when one cries out 
for freedom from pain and sickness and sorrow, 
Satan comes to that open gate and says, “ You are 
not sick; there is no such thing as grief and sor¬ 
row.” He injects into that suffering soul the virus 
of the lie that he first told in Eden, lulls it to sleep 
with the narcotic of perjury, petrifies it into 


78 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


stoicism, and presents it to the world as the em¬ 
bodiment of the perpetuated perjury of the Garden 
of Eden. 

Satan approaches every one. He did not even 
spare the Son of God. He came to Him and ap¬ 
pealed to His religious nature, begged Him to fall 
down and worship him, demanded that He tempt 
God. You are appealed to in the same way. He 
asks you to magnify the selfish, perpetuate the cov¬ 
etous, bend heaven and earth to satisfy the ease 
and pleasure of body, of appetite, and of lust. 
Satan never rests. He is doing his masterpiece of 
work today in striking at the body of Christ—the 
Church of God—and in his effort to increase the 
selfishness of men. There was never a time in the 
history of the world when selfishness was so ram¬ 
pant as it is today. America is suffering, today, 
from the most damnable case of selfishness with 
which she has ever been afflicted. No one has es¬ 
caped. Selfishness is manifested in every walk of 
life, in every caste of society, in every home, in 
every church. Even men who call themselves 
Christians are being controlled by selfishness, ab¬ 
normal and unprecedented. They are not willing 
to surrender the slightest pleasure, exchange chairs, 
vacate their seats, or give up any comfort. They 
are grasping, demanding, reaching, in answer to 
the demands of a Satan-directed selfishness. It has 
settled down over America; it is even affecting the 
Church. 


THE APPROACH OF SATAN 


79 


II. Satan comes in through the domestic gate— 
the loosely-guarded domestic gate. No one can 
explain the present-day condition of affairs on any 
other hypothesis. The homes of this country are 
under his control. Parents cannot tell where their 
children are. They do not know what they are 
doing. You cannot explain why parents are so 
indifferent to their children’s whereabouts or their 
welfare, other than by an acknowledgment of the 
influence and power of Satan. He is saying to 
parents, “ Let your children alone.” The voice of 
the Tempter is listened to, with the result that 
children are permitted to do all manner of things, 
parents are neglecting their duties and influence, 
and travelling avenues today never conceived of 
entering before in the history of the world. 

God does not want twenty-five million boys and 
girls in America to remain outside the Sunday 
School. There are that many who never darken 
the doors of the Sabbath School. It is one of the 
indications of the power of Satan in the home, 
paralyzing the domestic arm, destroying discipline, 
and wrecking domestic government. 

III. Satan conies in through the Eye-gate. It 
is impossible for you to explain by any other 
hypothesis than the influence and the purposes of 
Satan why seventy-two per cent, of the films shown 
on the screens of the moving picture houses of this 
country are of a questionable character. Why is it 
that you have on the screen the vilest, most sug- 


80 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


gestive and seductive characterizations to be round 
anywhere? Who writes the scenarios, who pro¬ 
duces the scenes, who magnifies the evil—who? 
Certainly not men who love Jesus Christ; certainly 
not men who are Christians; certainly not men who 
are interested in the evangelization of the world, in 
the salvation of children, or in the purification of 
society. Satan controls those screen presentations, 
because he hates Christ, because he denies His 
deity, because he wants to destroy belief in His 
vicarious death. If he can wreck the souls of 
children, his purposes have been accomplished. 
Eye-gate is one of his most effective approaches 
to the human heart. The vulgar styles in which 
women dress would never have come into vogue 
had it not been for the direct influence of Satan— 
that Eye-gate might be entered, that the lusts might 
be fed and made to burn, that souls might be 
damned. 

The very screens that I am now referring to, at 
one time, in the past, entered into a program of 
presenting in a seductive way White Slave propa¬ 
ganda, and the re-opening of segregated districts. 
They sent one picture over the country, to be fol¬ 
lowed by two others, and by a system of agitation. 
They did not succeed, but they are using seductive 
measures, today, to break down the laws of pro¬ 
priety, destroy the boundaries of modesty, and send 
boys and girls adrift into fields of licensed and 
unbridled physical liberty. I would see my city 


THE .APPROACH OF SATAN 


81 


burning in ashes before I would permit again the 
establishment of segregated districts and the recog¬ 
nition by civil authorities of licensed vice. Soft 
drink establishments and parlors called beautiful, 
are all the agents of Satan to wreck your child, to 
debauch and ruin society. Satan comes through 
the narcotic evil, too, through the alcoholic evil and 
through the physical evil. Along these lines he 
approaches every individual. Through all these 
channels he approaches men and women for the 
purpose of paralyzing the arm of the Church, 
capturing our sons and daughters, and destroying 
the souls of our precious children. 

IV. Satan approaches the Christian and asks 
him to become a pacifist, demands that he cease his 
strenuous efforts to fight evil. Through this means 
he desires to cripple the fighting power of Chris¬ 
tians. Satan does not desire that an individual be 
vulgar and pernicious in his meanness. He just 
desires that he refuse to accept Christ; that he deny 
His deity; that he refuse to fight for the faith, con¬ 
tend for the right, and struggle to attain personal 
righteousness. 

Satan often comes to us in the form of a famous 
preacher, or in the robe of a teacher of science, or 
in the garb of a philanthropist. He sometimes ap¬ 
proaches a community in the form of legislation. 
Take the bills that have been submitted by legis¬ 
lators prohibiting the vaccination of children, the 
inspection of schools, and the establishment of the 


82 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


authority of the Health Departments for the cor¬ 
rection of diseases. What is the logical result? 
The people who favor such bills are the people who 
deny the deity of Christ and His vicarious atone¬ 
ment, deny the existence of sin, sickness and death. 
They have the legislature enact bills that prohibit 
the Health Authorities from using quarantine, per¬ 
forming vaccination and in other ways aiding dis¬ 
eased children. If Satan could carry out his 
purposes, he would legally establish the right of 
these people to deny the fundamental facts of sin, 
sickness, death and hell. A man may have the 
right (although I doubt it strongly) to live in the 
house with his diseased child who is suffering from 
a malignant and contagious disease without inspec¬ 
tion, but he has no right to send that child to the 
public schools or upon the public streets to come in 
contact with other children. He has no right to 
lie about the child’s condition and say that the child 
is not suffering with diphtheria or scarlet fever 
when the opposite is the case. He has no right to 
say that there is no such thing as diphtheria, or 
scarlet fever. He has no right to say the child is 
not sick and thereby deprive the child of medical 
aid and of the advantages of scientific treatment. 
He has no right to write that lie into a bill or put 
it upon the statute books, and thereby inflict society 
with a death-dealing disease. 

A man has the right to say whether or not a dis¬ 
eased child shall sit down by his child in the public 


THE APPROACH OF SATAN 


83 


schools of the land. Satan shall not accomplish his 
purpose, or in that way spread disease and death 
over the community. If one has become so callous 
that he is willing to see his child suffer the agonies 
of hell, we should not permit him to leave his child 
in that condition. If Satan has lulled that parent 
to sleep, a benevolent public should snatch that 
child from the arms of the sleeping parent and give 
him the advantage of every discovery of science. 
Satan would lull to sleep the voting public in order 
that he might put such infamous bills upon the 
statute books, because those people who advocate 
them deny the existence of sin. 

Satan desires to come to you in the guise of 
economy and ask you not to appropriate money 
for the establishment of institutions to care for 
the feeble-minded, the aged, the crippled and the 
incompetent. If you listen to him, you will turn 
the feeble-minded upon the streets, and when they 
grow older Satan will use them for the commission 
of crime, the spread of disease, and the increase 
of murder. 

V. Satan approaches the Church and says that 
religious activity should not be so strenuous; that 
we should not spend so much time trying to save 
the unsaved, nor spend so much time and money 
trying to evangelize the heathen. He suggests that 
we spend our time, energy and money in social 
service work, because he knows that social service 
programs have never saved a soul. Through this 


84 , 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


method he tries to paralyze the arm of the Church, 
weaken her faith, and cut off her avenue of prayer. 
Why aren’t you, as an individual, a personal evan¬ 
gelist ? It is because your faith has become weak¬ 
ened, and your prayer-life confused. You are 
yielding to the temptations of Satan; you are under 
his influence; you are listening to his seductive 
teachings; you are indirectly controlled by his 
power; you are indifferent, careless, negligent, 
lazy. You come to church on Sunday morning and 
go through perfunctory worship; you idle away 
your time through the week; you come back the 
next Sunday with empty hands, an empty heart, 
and an empty record because Satan has kept you 
from being positive, aggressive and successful. 

Satan approaches the Christian, tempts him to 
inactivity, suggests to him lethargy, begs him to 
refuse to work. Oh, Christian, recognize the 
power and presence of Satan. Drive him from 
your presence—crush him. Oh, sinner, there is no 
relief for you, no emancipation for your soul except 
through Jesus Christ, who can defeat Satan, and 
who, at the last, will strike the deadly blow de¬ 
stroying his power. Let me ask you to accept 
Christ, become a Christian, for only through His 
supernatural power can you overcome the Evil One. 
Your Lord is waiting to clothe you with His 
righteousness and arm you with overcoming power. 


IX 


THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE 

“ Will a man rob God? ”— Matachi 3: 8. 

“Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be 
found faithful ”— 1 Corinthians 4:2. 

W ILL a man rob God?” In this sermon 
let me indicate several propositions, all 
of which are principles, rules and doc¬ 
trines of the stewardship of life. 

I. Let me suggest to you the meaning of the 
w*ord stewardship. What does it involve? What 
are the things you think of when you hear it? If 
you are a logical listener, a logical reasoner, you 
are forced to think of one in authority who can 
create stewards, or appoint stewards and vest them 
with responsibility. You are also compelled to 
think of those who are appointed. What have they 
been required to do? What authority has been 
vested in them? Then, of course, your mind turns 
to the doctrine of stewardship, the sovereign, the 
subject, the appointment, the one appointed, the 
duty, the responsibility, the accountability. When 
you have thought through these things you will 
either be very much alarmed, or you will become 
more consecrated, more spiritual, and more power¬ 
ful than you have ever been before. This doctrine 


85 


86 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


settles every problem that could be presented to the 
individual. Do you recognize God as absolute? 
Do you realize the doctrine of the absolute sover¬ 
eignty of God? If you do, you will not offend 
God by talking about other sovereigns; you will not 
wound your brethren; you will not make infrac¬ 
tions of God’s law nor of the rights and equities of 
your associates. You will never stand in a position 
of rebellion against God; nor will you ever be con¬ 
trolled by greed, avarice, hatred or covetousness, 
if you recognize His absolute sovereignty over you. 

It is impossible for a man to love God as he 
ought until he comes into vital relationship with 
Him through Jesus Christ. You cannot love, 
honor and obey Him unless there is recognition of 
His sovereignty. Then, when you recognize God’s 
sovereignty, you are going to recognize something 
else—God’s right, God’s absolute right, over you, 
yours and everything you have, or may have. 

Here is an illustration: A young man stood 
before Jesus and said, “ I love Thee and I obey 
the Father’s law and respect my relationship to my 
fellow men.” Reduced to common vernacular, 
Christ answered, “ Do you recognize My absolute 
sovereignty over that which you possess? Will 
you now voluntarily and willingly cut loose every 
idea of your proprietary right, and will you then 
follow Me?” The young man went away sad, 
convicted, condemned, and, if he never repented, 
lost. Do you recognize God’s absolute sovereignty 


THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE 


87 


over you? If you do, that settles every other 
question. 

The question has been asked, “ Why did not the 
Church prevent the World War? Can the Church 
prevent another war? ” Not as a corporate entity. 
If the doctrine I am now teaching had been recog¬ 
nized the last colossal tragedy could not have fallen 
on the world. You cannot have war when the 
people recognize the sovereignty of God. It would 
be impossible for the thing that produced the last 
war to produce another war, if the world would 
recognize the sovereignty of God. There can be 
no greed, no avarice, no covetousness, if the sov¬ 
ereignty of God be recognized. You cannot covet 
that which God possesses. You cannot be greedy 
if you recognize that God has proprietary right 
over that which you claim as yours. I challenge 
any group of men who call themselves business 
men to successfully contradict that statement. 

Now, what is the basis of stewardship? It is the 
recognition of the sovereignty of God. He is su¬ 
preme. He possesses all. He created all. He, by 
the second birth, brought you into existence. How 
did you come into existence? First, as a human 
entity, by the creative act of God. How did you 
come into existence as a child of God—as a Chris¬ 
tian? By His gift, by His favor, by His sacrifice. 
You had nothing to do with it. Hence, you are in 
existence by His favor, by His gift, by His sover¬ 
eign love. It is a case of the sovereign and His 


88 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


subject. All that you possess He gave. You do 
not own one single thing. You cannot claim pro¬ 
prietary right over anything. It is God’s, not 
yours. He gave it to you because of His favor, 
because of His sovereign grace, because of His 
love, because of His willingness to dispense to you 
that which He possesses. 

Why do you have it in your possession ? That is 
the thing that brings a man face to face with the 
test. By the favor of God, of course. But, when 
He puts it in your possession, what is created? 
The greatest trust ever imposed: First, because of 
the character of the sovereign who imposes it; 
second, because of the purpose of the trust; third, 
because of the object to be accomplished by the 
trust. 

What does it mean to be a steward? It means 
you are God’s agent, trustee, acting for Him, and 
not for yourself. That is stewardship. That is the 
rule that will solve every problem. Do you think 
there would be any conflict between nations if that 
rule were practiced? I challenge the world to 
refute that statement. If the world will adopt the 
law of stewardship all international problems will 
be settled in seven minutes. Peace will reign 
throughout the world if that law is put into prac¬ 
tice. The thing that is keeping the earth’s cauldron 
boiling is greed, avarice, jealousy and covetousness. 
If you could bring the doctrine I am talking about 
into universal practice, there would be no greed, 


THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE 


89 


none of these things. All international problems 
can be solved by the adoption of the doctrine of 
stewardship. 

Take the broad question of the stewardship of 
life. I belong to Him by the grace and sovereign 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I am not my own. Paul 
said, “ Whose I am, and whom I serve.” That i9 
the whole question: To whom do you belong? 
You belong to God through the purchase of Jesus 
Christ. You serve Him, or you serve some one 
else. Whom do you serve? You cannot serve 
Him absolutely unless the doctrine I am preaching 
is practiced. Does God put a rule before you? 
Yes. From Abraham and Melchizedek, down to 
the present day the tithe is the way to bring this 
doctrine into existence in a practical form. The 
first tenth belongs to God. 

At the very point I am now touching on the 
decline of the Church begins. Men do not recog¬ 
nize His sovereignty, His right. They undertake 
to dictate to God what they will give, when they 
will work, and how they will work. No Christian 
has the right to do anything of that sort. There is 
no warrant for it in the Bible. God said, “ It is all 
mine, but, I will collect only the interest. Lay it on 
the table. I will do with it what ought to be done. 
Give me one-tenth first.” Some one has said, 
“ Why put in the word ‘ first ’ ? ” Therein lies the 
whole dishonesty of the Church. You have no 
right to make any calculation about your income. 


90 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


You cannot figure with the first tenth. You are 
dishonest if you try it. When you have paid God 
your debts, then you can look Him in the face and 
say, “ I have paid the interest on the borrowed 
money. ,, Remember, a steward is a man appointed, 
entrusted, honored and placed in a position of pe¬ 
culiar power. It is a tremendous responsibility, 
and faces continually a crucial test. 

In the next place, God said, “ Give me one-tenth 
of the capital and one-seventh of the time. Go 
and evangelize the world.” Do you know the 
reason it has taken us more than nineteen hundred 
years to evangelize the world is because of the dis¬ 
honesty of Christians? They have withheld the 
one-tenth of their income and have robbed God 
of the one-seventh of their time. Give me one- 
seventh of the time of the Church devoted abso¬ 
lutely to evangelization and I will evangelize 
America in one year, and one-tenth of income, 
and I will evangelize every comer of the world 
in one year. Then I will show you a Church 
so alive and so powerful that there will be halle¬ 
lujahs in every home in America. The reason 
we are not blessed today with great spiritual 
power is because the doctrine of stewardship is not 
recognized and practiced. I challenge you to test 
it. Someone has said, “ I am giving proportion¬ 
ately.” God never laid down that doctrine. Only 
some one who is dodging his obligations ever talks 
in that way. Christ heard the same doctrine. 


THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE 


91 


There were people bringing their tithes and Christ 
was watching them. After a while it came to the 
question of putting in an offering and some began 
putting in proportionately. Christ said, “ This 
widow hath given more than them all. They have 
been giving proportionately. She gave her all.” 

What right have you to say to God that you will 
proportion your talent and time ? Remember, God 
is the sovereign; you are the subject. You say, “ I 
will go to the Sunday morning service, Sunday 
afternoon I will do as I please; Sunday night I 
will stay at home.” What right have you to say 
you will give God so many moments when all of 
them belong to Him? You would like me to say, 
“ Where are you going to begin to recognize pro¬ 
portionate giving ? ” My answer is—never with 
you who are able to give. The scrubwoman who 
gets $40.00 a month and takes care of three chil¬ 
dren should be put in your pew to shame you. She 
is the standard, not you. Christ said, “ That poor 
widow with all the responsibilities of life upon her 
shoulders, pours her soul, her life, into the treas¬ 
ury. She is the standard , not you.” That is what 
God says about it. Do not tell me you are giving. 
You are not, by her standard. She is the standard. 

A man once said to me, “ You put so many 
thousands of dollars into branch schools and 
churches, what have you to show for it ? ” In one 
building alone, one hundred and twenty-five souls 
saved, and two hundred and forty-six Sunday 


92 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


School pupils enrolled. I put the gospel of Jesus 
Christ into a community that had never heard the 
name of Christ from an organized church before. 
I put little babes into the arms of the church, young 
men and young women dedicated to the ministry 
and foreign fields. The doors of heaven are wide 
open and the gates of hell closed in that community. 
Are you satisfied? Oh, you miserly, selfish, dis¬ 
honest critics. Cook at the souls and tell me what 
you would take for them if they were your chil¬ 
dren. I have laid the foundation. Tear it up, if 
you can. No logical man can tear it up. A critic 
can hurl brickbats at it, but cannot destroy it. 
You must spend and be spent if you are to succeed 
in life. 

Friends, that is the whole doctrine of Christian 
stewardship. It is success. Whenever you begin 
to conserve yourself, you have lost sight of the fact 
that God is the sovereign. The sovereign is going 
to take care of you. Do you spend, and is God 
glorified? You know that is the doctrine to make 
one successful. I have tried to live it, but at times 
have failed. I have been tempted by Satan to 
decide how much to spend and to put the selfish 
interest to the front. Tet me ask you to give the 
best there is in you to the accomplishment of the 
task. If you succeed in any of the professions, arts 
or sciences, you will have to succeed on that basis. 
There are men sitting before me who are thinking 
of their personal interests. God never made a 


THE STEWARDSHIP OF LIFE 


93 


bushel of wheat out of a handful of grain kept in 
a bin. Except it fall into the ground and die, it 
will remain alone. That is stewardship. If I could 
put into you the determination and the courage I 
am talking about, I could write your name on the 
blue canopy lighted by the eternal stars. I could 
scatter the world with sunshine, plant two blades 
of grass where one is now growing, and produce 
harmony and peace in every corner of the world. 

Listen, young students, never try to conserve 
yourselves. You are His students. Plunge into 
your work and practice this doctrine. Do not 
think it is going to kill you. I would rather you 
would have succeeded and pleased Him than to 
have lived seventy years and then stand before 
Him with empty hands, or arms full of leaves. 
That is stewardship—the stewardship of life. 

And at the last when we get Home and we stand 
in Christ’s presence and He asks the question: “ I 
gave you the talents, what did you do with them ? ” 
we shall be able to answer: “ Here they are, Lord. 
All of them multiplied, all of them brought back 
to Thee.” I hear Him say, “ Well done, faithful 
steward. You shall sit with Me on the Eternal 
Throne.” 


X 


CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 

“ It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort 
you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which 
was once delivered unto the saints.” —Jude 3. 

I T is the duty, the God-created and commanded 
duty of every Christian redeemed by the blood 
of Jesus Christ, to contend for the faith. 
There are three very significant facts stated in this 
quoted passage from God’s own Word. 

First: You are required to earnestly contend for 
the faith. You are not permitted to go about this 
task in an indifferent, lackadaisical, careless and 
impersonal way. It is the earnestness bom of con¬ 
viction and controlled by the abiding belief of the 
eternal truth revealed by the Holy Ghost. 

Secondly: You are required to contend for the 
faith delivered to the saints. You are not per¬ 
mitted to compromise, to adjust the faith to the 
code and programme of unbelief. You are re¬ 
quired to contend for it, fight for it, die for it if 
need be. 

Thirdly: The faith is of supernatural origin, 
created and delivered by Almighty God, and re¬ 
vealed to the Church by the members of the 
Godhead. 


94 


CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 95 

What is this faith requiring such controlling 
belief, such strenuous efforts and continuous teach¬ 
ing? It is not the product merely of historical 
facts. It is more than historical facts. It is com¬ 
posed of supernatural facts making supernatural 
history, which can never be effaced, changed or 
amended. It is absolute belief in the sovereignty 
of God, who created all things; an over-mastering 
belief in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, very 
God of very God, born of the Virgin Mary—God 
Incarnate; the glorious fact of the vicarious, sub¬ 
stitutionary death of Jesus Christ, the only means 
of salvation, the only way by which human nature 
can be changed, the only process by which one can 
be born again and formed a new creature in Christ 
Jesus, the only way by which sin can be atoned for, 
the only process by which the sinner can be lifted 
from his lost estate and given a supernatural posi¬ 
tion in Christ before God; the blessed fact of facts, 
the supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ, raised 
from the dead as an evidence that God had accepted 
his vicarious atonement as the ground of our justi¬ 
fication, for God cannot receive the sinner in a state 
of justification if Jesus Christ did not vicariously 
die and supematurally arise from the dead. His 
resurrection is the most glorious fact of all, and on 
it the whole fabric of Christianity rests. The 
victorious fact of His ascension. His seat at the 
right hand of God as Mediator, where He now 
abides and represents the Church. The fact of the 


96 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


security of the Church, the security of every re¬ 
deemed soul, and the absolute certainty of that 
soul’s everlasting companionship with Him in the 
heavenly mansion. The great dynamic fact of His 
Second Coming. He will come in real, tangible, 
visible form, in the same body in which He arose 
from the grave and ascended to the right hand of 
God. The great fact of God’s infallible Word, in¬ 
spired, vested with supernatural authority—the 
only Book of authority in the world, our only rule 
of faith and practice. 

The evangelization of the world and the pro¬ 
gram of the Church rests upon these facts. 
These supernatural facts, delivered by Almighty 
God, constitute the faith delivered once for all to 
the saints. There have been no amendments, no 
additions, no subtractions from this supernatural 
faith. It is the creed delivered by Almighty God 
to those who are born again through the blood of 
Jesus Christ. There can be no other creed God 
will sanction, that the Church should hold, or that 
individuals should teach. All modifications come 
from the enemies of Christ, the rationalistic ene¬ 
mies of Christ. 

Christ is the Son of God, Very Son of Very 
God, born of the Virgin Mary, or He is not any¬ 
thing. God testifies that He is His Son; that He 
was born of the Virgin Mary; that He did have a 
previous eternal existence; that He did die on Cal¬ 
vary for the salvation of sinners; that He did arise 


CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 


97 


from the dead; He did ascend; He is at the right 
hand of God; He is coming again. We are re¬ 
quired to contend for this faith, to fight for it, to 
die for it, if need be. 

There is another significant fact: The text itself 
teaches that we cannot contend unless the faith is 
being attacked, unless the enemies of Christ are 
hurling their anathemas, unless the forces of Anti¬ 
christ are trying to destroy the faith. It is the busi¬ 
ness of the Church to propagate the faith, to teach 
it, to do an aggressive piece of work in the line of 
teaching the faith. If the Church were bending 
her every energy in teaching the faith, perhaps the 
enemies of Christ would be put to flight more 
rapidly. Who brought on the war? The enemies 
of Christ. Who is bringing on the war within the 
Church? The enemies of this creed, the enemies 
of this faith, those who represent the rationalistic 
forces of the world. Do they expect the born- 
again, redeemed Christians to sit idly by, while they 
ruthlessly attack the faith, try to destroy the 
authority of the Bible, and try to rob Christ of His 
power and of His vicarious work? They make 
the attack on Christ and on this creed, and then, 
with faces covered with manufactured smiles of 
piety, they say, “ We ought to live together in 
peace and quiet and the Church should not be dis¬ 
turbed.” Who disturbed the Church? She was 
quiet and peaceful, continuing her work of propa¬ 
gating the faith until the enemies of Christ entered 


98 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


the fold and began to attack the very life of the 
Son of God. 

Those who contend for peace after they have 
created the disturbance remind one very much of 
a domestic scene where the affinity, the paramour, 
comes into the home and says to the loving, faithful 
wife: “ Let us dwell together in peace and quiet; 
we should not disturb the tranquillity of the do¬ 
mestic circle; let us advocate unity, and in union let 
us dwell together under this one roof in peace and 
happiness/' Hagar tried it. Others have tried it, 
but they had to be cast out. There is no room for 
the affinity in the well-ordered, well-regulated, 
orthodox, God-loving Christian home. It is just as 
impossible to have peace in the Church of Jesus 
Christ when the ecclesiastical affinities try to de¬ 
stroy the integrity and character, and work and 
power of the Head of the Church. There is no 
such thing as organic union with heresy and ortho¬ 
doxy, with Christ and Antichrist, with the ration¬ 
alistic forces and real Christianity. The Christian 
is of supernatural origin. He cannot dwell in 
peace and in unity with one who is of natural 
origin, who comes of rationalistic parentage. 
There is no peace; they cannot dwell together. 
The scene presents trouble, sorrow and contention. 
It calls for the greatest exercise of faith on the part 
of Christians the world has ever seen. The battle 
must be fierce, the contention must be strenuous, 
the spirit of loyalty must be perfect, and the 


CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH 99 

Church must be in incessant prayer. No move 
should be made that is not the result of incessant 
prayer. 

Let every true Christian, every born-again child 
of God, remember that the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against the Church. She shall triumph. 
The affinity and her rationalistic children shall be 
cast out. The Church shall be preserved, protected, 
and at last gathered into her everlasting home 
with Christ. 

Awake, Christians, and defend the faith. It is 
your God-decreed duty. 


XI 


THE INFALLIBLE TEST 

“And ye are witnesses of these things” 

—Luke 24:48. 

“Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that 
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of 
God . And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh is not of God .”—1 John 4:2-3. 

T HE text taken from Luke is part of a state¬ 
ment of fact—the fact that the disciples 
were intended to be witnesses for Christ, 
what they were to witness, the extent of the terri¬ 
tory to be covered by their message, and the persons 
to whom the testimony was to be delivered, and the 
results of the testimony when delivered. All of 
these propositions are contained in the words, “Ye 
are witnesses ”—witnesses of all the great essential 
facts on which the salvation of the soul rests. The 
central fact of all facts is the resurrection of 
Christ. The resurrection of Christ isn’t resting 
upon an hypothesis, it is an historical fact—a 
supernatural fact. It is an essential fact. It is the 
deciding fact—the fact upon which the whole ques¬ 
tion of the salvation of souls rests. 

No disciple of Christ, who preached in the early 
centuries, omitted teaching the bodily resurrection 


100 


THE INFALLIBLE TEST 


101 


of Christ. At that time the two contending camps 
were in existence. Hymenseus, Alexander and 
Philetus belonged to the camp which said the resur¬ 
rection is past (2 Tim. 2:17-18). They said, 
Christ’s body did not arise from the dead. Alex¬ 
ander and Hymenaeus were the Unitarians and ra¬ 
tionalists of that day, who denied the bodily 
resurrection of Christ. Whether or not present 
day rationalists run back in their ancestral line to 
those who paid money to the conspirators who were 
watching the grave, they certainly belong to the 
school out of which that conspiracy came. 

If you have preached the doctrine that a man’s 
salvation is to be judged by his fruits, then you 
have behind you the Scripture which declares that 
he who believes and knows experimentally that 
Jesus Christ came in the flesh, is born again. He 
who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is not 
a Christian. The Scripture reference cited above 
states that there were two camps at that time. 
They were of the world. They did not believe in 
the supernatural statements of Scripture, nor in 
these supernatural facts. They denied the fact of 
Christ’s Incarnation, and taught that He was only 
an historical character. John says, you may know 
that a man is born again if his soul and spirit and 
heart and intellect accept Jesus Christ as very God 
of very God. He is a Christian who so believes 
and accepts Christ. 

It is impossible to discuss these questions if you 


102 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


are going to ignore the Bible. The Bible is the 
revelation of these facts. 

You will never be able to build the Christian 
convert into a strong, athletic Christian if you do 
not indoctrinate him. If America is suffering 
from anything today, it is ignorance of the funda¬ 
mentals upon which the government rests. You 
will have to build its faith on fundamental, Ameri¬ 
can doctrines. The same thing is true of the 
Christian. You must indoctrinate the members of 
the Church. One of the most vicious doctrines 
ever taught is the doctrine of intellectual concili¬ 
ation. That is what the school of rationalists is 
teaching. They have planted in their college and 
school faculties men who are teaching intellectual 
conciliation. They have undermined the people’s 
faith. They have captured your theological 
schools, some of your Bible schools, and are teach¬ 
ing rationalism, to the detriment of the faith of the 
people. You must bring the people back to the 
great truths contained in God’s infallible Word if 
you expect to fortify and enlarge the Church. 

One of the doctrines these men are teaching is, 
“ The Bible is a history of the human family.” It 
is one of the most dangerous doctrines ever taught. 
The Bible is not a history of the human family. 
There isn’t a word of truth in the statement. The 
Bible is the infallible history of sin and the re¬ 
demption of the human soul. What is going to 
become of the sinner, at home and abroad, if you 


THE INFALLIBLE TEST 103 

do not teach him what true redemption is ? What 
is going to become of the sinner if you leave him 
to Hindu philosophy? Unitarianism in its per¬ 
fection, and Hindu philosophy in its perfection 
are one. 

Here is the thing, which to my mind is utterly 
reprehensible: The present-day heretics, just like 
those already mentioned, are absolutely dishonest 
when they say, “We believe in the divinity of 
Christ.” If I am a trained theologian, I under¬ 
stand what they mean. But if they say that to an 
untrained audience, the average man isn’t going to 
catch what they mean. They say, “ we believe 
Christ had divinity in Him, and, you have divinity 
in you.” How dangerous such doctrines are! 
How deadly they are! Jesus Christ was not divine 
in the sense in which these false teachers describe 
Him, and they know it, but they say it for the 
purpose of deceiving those who listen. Jesus 
Christ is God in His entirety. He did not have 
divinity in Him. He is eternally God. That is the 
difference. These men are, today, using our Chris¬ 
tian terminology, but when asked to explain their 
position they put false interpretations upon their 
statements. 

There are two great schools of thought today— 
those who belong to the Evangelical school, who 
believe in the evangelical faith delivered once for 
all to the saints, and the Rationalists, who use our 
language, but deny the truths. When you tell them 


104 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


they belong to the school of Hindu philosophy, 
that they came out of the school of Hymenseus, 
they reply, “ We are modern and intellectual.” 

Here is what the evangelical Christians believe : 
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. Then the 
fight begins. That Unitarian Dean of a certain 
University says, “ The only question as to whether 
a doctrine is Christian is whether it has been held 
by Christians.” Did you ever hear a more absurd 
statement than that? You say, “ I don’t see any¬ 
thing wrong in that.” The whole foundation of 
rationalism rests there. The whole foundation of 
Unitarianism and Hindu philosophy rests on such 
statements. To contend for the opinion of man, 
and the effort of man, and the conduct of man, does 
not settle the question as to whether the great 
fundamental truths God has revealed are funda¬ 
mental or not. They rest upon God, and not upon 
whether I have stated them, or have not stated 
them. They rest upon God, and not upon man. 
The rationalist contends that the salvation of man 
rests upon man’s efforts. The child of God con¬ 
tends that the salvation of man, the condition of 
the saint and his ultimate perfection rest upon the 
sovereignty of God, and Christ’s vicarious sacrifice. 
Christians contend that if you can contribute the 
weight of one hair to the salvation of your soul, 
then grace is not grace. Grace is voluntary, free, 
and independent of man’s efforts. 

We contend there is one Triune, personal God 


THE INFALLIBLE TEST 


105 


who governs all things. We contend Jesus Christ 
is very God; that the birth of Christ was super¬ 
natural, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of 
Mary, yet without sin. The life of Christ was 
perfect because He was the Son of God. He died 
voluntarily, the just for the unjust, a ransom for 
many. And there shall be a resurrection of all 
men. Christ ascended into Heaven and sitteth on 
the right hand of God. He will come again to this 
world. 

Man was created in the image of God by a 
supernatural act. Death entered by sin, so death 
passed upon all men in that all have sinned. Re¬ 
generation by the Holy Ghost; that is what the 
Christian believes. What do rationalists believe? 
When Hymenseus was by Paul and John turned 
over to Satan to be punished for blasphemy, John 
said, “ He who says that our bodies are not to be 
raised, ought to be turned over to Satan.” What 
do rationalists teach? They say, “We do not be¬ 
lieve the Bible is infallible.” They claim to be 
intellectual. They claim the Bible is a human 
record of human experience containing truth and 
error. How are you going to be saved, then? If 
you were a Chinese pagan and these teachers came 
to you and said, “ The Bible is not infallible; truth 
is to be determined by your reason,” you would 
never see the light, if left to your reason to say 
whether or not it is infallible. That is the trouble 
on the foreign mission field today. Some ration- 


106 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


alists have been sent out who preach that the world 
is still in process of creation. And they call this 
modern! It is pantheistic. The whole Christian 
position is lost if men do not believe Christ is God. 
Others say Christ swooned in the grave; that the 
birth of Christ was natural, but illegitimate. Paul 
says: “ Please take Alexander and Hymenseus and 
Philetus and turn them over to Satan, because their 
denial of Christ, His incarnation and resurrection 
is blasphemous.” 

Again: These false teachers say: “ In His life 
Christ was subject to the limitations of man, but 
to a less degree. His death is exemplary; Jesus 
Christ’s body did not arise from the dead; it re¬ 
mains in the dust of Palestine. We do not believe 
in the resurrection of the body. We believe His 
spirit is immortal; so is every man’s. Man is the 
product of evolution.” And yet, they claim to be 
intellectual. They claim to be scholars, yet stand 
up and say that evolution is a science. Great 
scholars have never claimed for evolution anything 
more than that it is an hypothesis. The great 
scholars of Germany have repudiated the theory 
of evolution. I am talking, now, about real schol¬ 
ars. Science is supposed to be an exact statement 
of exact facts and exact laws. These charlatans 
talk about evolution being a science. But here is 
where they dodge: They ask: “ Don’t you believe 
in development?” Development of species is a 
fact. Spencer and Darwin gave us pigeons highly 


THE INFALLIBLE TEST 


107 


developed, but they sent them back to the island 
from whence they came and they retrograded. 
The law of development cannot pass the boundary 
line of retrogression. I can take a pig and make a 
pretty good pig out of him, but turn a pig loose in 
the streets, and it will not be long until it wallows 
in the mire. The only sure thing is the regenerat¬ 
ing power of Jesus Christ. 

Once more: Rationalists teach that man is the 
unfortunate victim of environment and heredity. 
What happened to Eve and Adam ? The most per¬ 
fect environment God could make, the most perfect 
garden, could not keep Eve and Adam straight. 
Yet they talk about environment and education! 
Put them back in the garden, with the singing 
birds, the beautiful flowers and everything that 
grows, and they will sing, play and scamper un¬ 
hampered ; but human nature has in it the dynamic 
over which even perfect environment has no per¬ 
manent control. The only power that will lift you 
out of that abyss is the fact that Christ died, went 
down into hell to wash from you every stain of 
sin, and overcame the dynamic of depravity. By 
His sacrificial death He gave you new birth in 
Christ and made you a new creature. That is 
regeneration. 

Some of the most scientific criminals on earth 
are the most highly educated, university graduates. 
There are few forgers in America who do not 
carry a diploma from some State university. That 


108 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


is not meant as an attack upon education. It is 
offered as a proof that education is not able to 
regenerate a man. It can not change the human 
heart. 

I am not unfair, nor have I any animosity 
against the heretics. I would that they would 
come to Christ and be regenerated by His blood. 
I am expressing no personal feeling, save the feel¬ 
ing of love and trust and gratitude to Christ for 
saving my soul. Beautiful Christian atmosphere in 
a beautiful Christian home—everything conducive 
to a regulated life? It is not a regulated life I 
want. It is a new life with the love of God and the 
power of Christ. It is the life liberated by grace 
that I want. It is the life on the mountain peak of 
faith I want. That is the faith I offer you, lost 
soul. The fight is on, and it will never end until 
Christ comes again. 


XII 

THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 

“ This know also, that in the last days perilous times 
shall come. For men shall he lovers of their own selves, 
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to 
parents, unthankful, unholy. . . . Having a form of 
godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such 
turn away, for this sort are they which creep into 
houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, 
led away with divers lusts /'— 2 Timothy 3:1-6. 

T HESE verses are part of God’s infallible 
description of the hours and days in the 
closing scenes of the world’s history. If 
you are a student of events and also of God’s 
Word, you know that those verses portray the 
conditions of the present day, and conditions that 
are to follow. Sometimes I listen to men who 
question God’s Word, who seem to doubt the 
authenticity and authority of the Scriptures, and 
I wonder why they do not study the Scriptures, 
read them accurately, carefully, just as God has 
written them. Because, if any man’s conscience is 
functioning, if his reason is still on the throne, if 
he has any faculty of insight which enables him to 
read the Bible as God has written it, he will see a 
perfect outline of the movements of men, the 
march of the ages, and the trend of the times. 


109 


110 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


There is not a heretic on earth who knows the 
Scriptures. There is not a heretic on earth who 
can quote the Scriptures accurately. In making 
his attack upon God’s Word, he always garbles 
God’s holy Word. You have never seen a quota¬ 
tion, with the correct meaning of the Scriptures, 
given by a heretic. 

If you want to know something of the signifi¬ 
cance of the movements of today, read prophecy 
and you will find, and that speedily, that prophecy 
is unfolding the steps that today are making 
history. That is true of what we are pleased to 
call the great crime wave of today. The crime 
producers are mentioned in Holy Writ, and the 
period when the crime wave would sweep over the 
world is accurately described. This is not the only 
crime wave that has swept over the world, but 
every one has been prophesied in Holy Writ, and 
has come just at the time the Scriptures indicated. 
We are now in the midst of another crime wave 
prophesied in Scripture. You will see and under¬ 
stand something about these movements if you 
read the entire chapter from which my text is 
taken. Each word has a separate and distinct 
meaning. Each word describes a certain part of 
the movement of this day, brings to your attention 
a certain class of people and condition in the body 
politic, and shows you, accurately, just where to 
put your finger. Have you ever seen a statement 
that contained more in each word than these 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 111 

verses? Have you ever noticed, by reading his¬ 
tory, a more accurate description of the asser¬ 
tiveness, the abandon with which men conduct 
themselves? There is a crime wave. You cannot 
deny it. There may be those who will deny it, blit 
the stubborn facts stand out before you, telling you 
that there is a crime wave working over the whole 
face of civilization. That this crime wave shows 
up greater over certain parts of civilization is be¬ 
cause of the exposing, revelatory character of light, 
and because law and civilization are demanding 
certain things. 

You have to admit that this crime wave is per¬ 
fectly logical, not sporadic, not something you are 
uncertain about. 

There are twelve specific causes underlying this 
great movement of sin: 

I. These verses show, history proves, and your 
own observation confirms the fact that the first 
thing underlying this great wave of crime is the 
viciousness of sin. Therefore, the wave is logical. 
If you do not know anything about prophecy, those 
words may not have the effect desired. The crime 
wave is due to the viciousness of sin, and it con¬ 
vinces you of the accuracy of prophecy. Because, 
in the last days sin is going to be more active, more 
vicious, more determined and more aggressive than 
at any other period. Do you think you are the 
only one who knows about the movement of Time? 
There is not a demon under the control of Satan 


112 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


but knows. Satan knows the hour is striking, and 
his forces know that they must be exceedingly 
vicious if they are going to reap the harvest they 
expect before the check is put upon them. Satan 
has existed through all the long past, and he exists 
now and is more vicious and determined than at 
any previous period in his history. Never was 
there a time when sin was as determined as now. 
The awful, hellish, viciousness of sin is the cause 
of the crime wave sweeping over the world. 

II. The second thing is the rage of heresy. The 
rationalists who are making their attacks upon 
Jesus Christ and His infallible Book, will deny this 
statement. Mr. Heretic, Mr. Rationalist, I want to 
say that when you make your attack upon the deity 
of Christ, upon God’s infallible Word, you are 
starting the wave motions of hell that will have 
their ending in the violation of law and in other 
overt acts of men. Can I prove it ? When 
Nietzsche created his superman and made his attack 
upon Christ’s deity and God’s infallible Word, he 
forged the sword that has just put ten million boys 
under the sod. The late war could not have oc¬ 
curred had it not been for the damnable Nietzsche 
teaching his superman and making his attack upon 
Christ and God’s infallible Word. You have the 
war, the battlefield, and ten million dead soldiers to 
prove that statement. You who are laughing at 
the Bible, who do not study it and know nothing 
about it, are aiding and abetting that group of anti- 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 113 


christs to perpetuate the crime wave of today. 
They make their attack upon government, upon 
law, and upon the home. When you hear one of 
these men making an attack upon the Bible, write 
in your little notebook, “ There is a producer of 
crime.” 

III. The reaction of the World War is having 
very much to do with the crime wave of the world. 
You cannot go onto battlefields, mobilize some¬ 
thing like fifty million men, and kill them by the 
million without producing a certain condition of 
psychological abandon, which, acting through the 
unsaved forces of the armies, has a tremendous 
effect upon the morale of the world. It has always 
been so. A certain amount of crime has followed 
in the wake of every war. Following the World 
War, there has been a certain condition and cer¬ 
tain wave of crime which is the logical result of 
the conflict. Remember, that the war did not pro¬ 
duce the crime wave, but the things of which we 
are speaking produced the wave, and the wave 
produced the war. 

IV. Another contributing cause is ignorance of 
the Bible. Ret me lay the foundation of this part 
of my indictment. Thirty-five school teachers in a 
certain State were making application for licenses 
to teach. Thirteen did not know who wrote the 
Apostles’ Creed, and only thirteen were able to say 
who wrote the Decalogue, and where it could be 
found. Thirty-five were asked who wrote the 


114 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Sermon on the Mount. Only thirteen knew, and 
where it could be found. And, yet, you expect 
children to be taught to respect God and His Word. 
It is impossible for you to stop the crime wave that 
is sweeping over the country unless you bring the 
Bible back into the home and teach it to the chil¬ 
dren. There was a time when we took the children 
aside on Sunday afternoons and taught them the 
Catechism. There are but few who could find a 
Catechism in their homes today. Search through 
your closets and you will not find it. Are you 
going to put the Bible back into the public schools ? 
You cannot put it there to be taught by the public 
school teachers because they are not competent to 
teach it. The schools are full of heretics. The 
Bible ought to be put back into the schools and read 
every morning. Every child should know the Ten 
Commandments and the First and Second Psalm. 
There are many men who could not quote the Ten 
Commandments. One of the causes of crime is 
ignorance of God’s Word. 

V. Sabbath desecration. If men are going to 
be permitted, with complete abandon, to say that 
they can do as they please on God’s Holy Day, why 
not take the next step and do as they please in every 
other way? Christians are responsible for part of 
the present wave of Sabbath desecration. Some 
preachers assert that if people worship a little in 
the morning, they may do as they please in the 
afternoon, and no harm will be done. To such as 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 115 


these I would say—remember that whenever you 
undertake to put God’s day out of existence, you 
are putting into life a disregard for law. If 
you can carve out “ Remember the Sabbath Day to 
keep it holy,” why not carve out, “ Thou shalt not 
commit adultery ” ? Why not tear the Constitution 
to pieces and do as you please ? The Sabbath dese- 
crators of today are aiding and abetting the crime 
wave of the hour. 

VI. One of the augmenting causes of the crime 
wave is religious intrigue and intolerance. You 
are constantly being told that there should be no 
religious intolerance in this country. As if relig¬ 
ious intrigue and intolerance were practiced only 
by you. You are being charged, you alone are 
being charged with religious intrigue and religious 
intolerance. Hasn’t it been practiced by many 
other people for a great many years, and haven’t 
they tried every day to create religious ostracism? 
Of course it is wrong, and it breeds crime. There 
is no reason why there should be religious intrigue, 
dividing the house of God, and it is only done for 
the purpose of preventing the spread of the gospel. 

VII. Another reason for the crime wave is the 
present-day press. It is impossible for newspapers 
to print, month after month, the conflict between 
good forces and bad, or to disregard of law by 
criminals without its having a tremendous effect 
upon the reader. One of the causes permeating the 
press is the misrepresentation of virtue and the ex- 


116 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ploitation of vice for the purpose of increasing the 
circulation of the papers. If I should say I know a 
man who is going to have the ground broken for a 
million dollar plant, you would find an account of 
it in a little corner. But, let him commit a crime, 
and all the red ink of hell will spread it all over the 
front page. The magnifying of vice and the dimin¬ 
ishing of virtue, which the daily press is guilty of, 
has a tremendously baneful effect on the criminal 
element of society. 

VIII. There never came into existence anything 
that possessed the possibilities of being made so 
educationally profitable as the moving picture 
screen. Yet nothing has produced as much harm. 
As a mechanical device it might be used to promul¬ 
gate great educational truths. There are some¬ 
thing like eighteen million people sitting before the 
silver screen every day in this country. And it is 
magnifying the vice, the wreckage, the corruption, 
the infidelity, the intrigue of human nature all the 
time. Your boy, sitting in front of that screen, is 
having his desire to commit crime being fed by 
what his eyes behold. Your girl is being taught to 
sell the most precious thing God ever gave, by the 
flashlights of the screen. Following out its bane¬ 
ful purpose as a magnifier of the vice of human 
nature, the movie screen is one of the great crime 
producers of the country. 

It should be taken out of the hands of those who 
are making their attack upon the Holy Sabbath— 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 117 


men who say: “We do not want censorship.” If 
we had a Congress with even a shoe-string for a 
backbone it would pass a Federal Censorship law, 
requiring every one of the picture-producing people 
who are making an attack upon God, upon His 
Bible, and upon the Sabbath, to bring his produc¬ 
tion before a Christian Citizenship Board. I be¬ 
lieve in a Federal Censorship Board. We must 
clean the screen. I believe, moreover, that it should 
be captured by the Church and kept out of the 
hands of the crime producers. 

IX. The Dance. All the disgusting hugging 
that has been going on for the last fifteen years 
has been sending juvenile society to the very door 
of hell. The public dance hall is one of the great¬ 
est curses ever introduced into a community. How 
can you regulate five hundred couples at once? 
When you turn them loose on the floor you cannot 
regulate them. When people come to the dance 
dressed for the purpose of getting the effect of 
physical contact you know it aids in producing the 
crime wave. 

X. There is a condition which might be called 
Social Speeditis. Let me tell you how it starts. It 
affects everything you do. You have to exceed the 
speed limit in walking, in buying, in spending. 
This is the day of extravagant and reckless ex¬ 
penditures. A young man cannot make one hun¬ 
dred dollars a month and spend one hundred and 
twenty-five without somebody losing something. 


118 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


You cannot spend more than you make and be 
honest and clean. Let me say, and no one loves a 
good woman more than I do, whenever a young 
girl encourages a young man to spend more than 
he earns, she will land him, eventually, behind the 
bars. If she is not willing to allow her sweetheart 
to live within his income, she is unfit to become his 
wife. My advice to all such is—“ Let her alone.” 

XI. The crime wave is rising because of lax 
enforcement of law. There never was a time when 
we were enforcing law so indifferently as we are 
today. Who is to blame? First of all, men who 
refuse to serve on juries. You try to be excused 
from the jury room by pretending you are not con¬ 
versant enough to make an intelligent juror; you 
are controlled largely by your sentiments—and so 
forth. We cannot run this country on sentiment. 
When a person is charged with a crime and there 
is no doubt about his guilt, you will find people 
doing everything in their power to enable that 
criminal to escape the consequences of his crime. 
You are trying constantly to get some man out of 
the penitentiary who ought to stay there; and those 
who have committed crimes against society you are 
trying to have excused. We shall never be able to 
enforce law until public officials are willing to do 
their duty. Public officials say: “ I will enforce 
this law, but not that one.” It is not his business 
to select the law to be enforced. It is his business 
to uphold the majesty of the law, to teach respect 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 119 


for God, obedience to law and reverence for the 
constitution of the United States. You will never 
be able to enforce law as it should be enforced until 
you establish judicial commissions to select judges 
and certify that they are capable and incorruptible. 

When men who care nothing about the law try 
to make a hero out of a criminal, of course, they 
are aiding in producing a crime wave. 

XII. Irreverence for home, for God, for law, 
and for the institutions of the land is also making 
its contribution to the present-day crime wave. 
When you have no regard for the home, its sacred¬ 
ness, its rights, its purposes, its powers, its divinity, 
how do you expect to minimize crime? Women 
are learning to use weapons, and they are killing 
more husbands than we can well register. That 
comes from irreverence for home, for God. Our 
text says, “ This know, also, that in the last days 
perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers 
of their own selves.” Can any one deny it? 
“Boasters,” “ unholy, without natural affection.” 

“ Traitors.” What is a traitor? The man who 
advocates the destruction of God’s Word, who ad¬ 
vocates an improper social life, who advocates 
license in place of law —he is a traitor. “ Traitors, 
heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure.” The old 
sturdy, stalwart spirit that courts difficulty, is 
willing to come through rain and storm seems to 
have faded from the world. “ Having a form of 
godliness, but denying the power thereof.” The 


120 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


power of godliness, namely, personal righteousness 
and loyalty to the Church. 

“ This sort are they which creep into houses, and 
lead captive silly women.” They would damn your 
home. These are the cults that separate husband 
and wife. These cults, living off diseased bodies 
and preying upon the unsuspecting, they are the 
ones mentioned in these Scriptures. These are the 
facts that are behind the crime wave of today. 
What are you going to do about it ? I have given 
you twelve reasons. I could give you many more. 

There is but one remedy. It is found in a revival 
of genuine Christianity. Get back to old-fashioned 
ideas—which, in reality, are just as new today as 
when the angels sang on the hills of Bethlehem. 
Get back to regeneration by the blood of Jesus, 
salvation by faith, grace given by God through 
Christ. You know you are a sinner. Get back to 
the place where you will stand ready to confess 
Christ as your Savior. He who believes is saved— 
now. The remedy lies, then, in following up that 
confession of faith. The remedy lies in the 
Church, and in no place outside of the Church. 
Come back to the Church. When you have been 
redeemed, made your confession of faith, sworn 
your loyalty to God, to His Son, to the Bible, to the 
Church, then you are going to keep the laws of the 
land and respect the Constitution of the United 
States. Then you are going to respect your home, 
build up your family in holy faith—you are going 


THE CRIME WAVE PRODUCERS 121 


to become a citizen worth while. There is no 
remedy for you outside of Christ. Won’t you 
confess Him, and join His Church? It stands for 
the deity of Christ. It stands for the blood atone¬ 
ment, the preaching of the Bible, the Constitution 
of the country, righteous living, equitable, square 
dealing, a happy family and home. 


XIII 

THE OLD AND THE NEW MODERNIST 


“Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that con¬ 
fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not 
of God .”— i John 4:2-3. 

" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God 

—2 Timothy 3:16. 

T HERE is confusion in the minds of the laity 
because of the terms used by the enemies of 
Christ. It is therefore necessary frequently 
to repeat some very essential things and restate 
some of the infallible doctrines of the Bible, for 
the human mind is prone to forget. Memory does 
not keep her windows clean, nor her scroll rolled 
out before her all the while, and sometimes when 
she lapses she fails to recall great fundamental 
truths on which the soul must rest, and to which 
the Republic must look for its stability. It is abso¬ 
lutely essential to the salvation of the individual 
and the perpetuity of this Government that every 
man understand the fundamental questions on 
which the Church rests, and to which the Govern¬ 
ment must look for protection and perpetuation. 

It is to the orthodox pulpit that the Church looks 
for the defense of the faith delivered once for all 


122 


THE OLD AND NEW MODERNIST 123 

to the saints. There is no other agency in the* 
world teaching that faith except the pulpit which 
believes in the blood of Jesus Christ. All the con¬ 
ditions through which the world has passed were 
due to the divergence, both of the pulpit and of the 
Church, from the orthodox position. That is a 
fact easy to prove, when one studies history. 

It is said that the modernist is the enlightened 
and educated person of today; that the modernist 
does not believe these old-time truths, and that he 
represents the progress, the education and the in¬ 
tellect of advancing centuries. Beautiful, but abso¬ 
lutely false! There is no real scholar in the world, 
who has the right to scholarship, who takes such a 
position. There are charlatans in the pulpit who 
use these misleading and confusing terms, but they 
are as unworthy as it is possible for souls to be. 
That is exactly what the little Book of John says. 
Write it in modern language and it comes to some¬ 
thing like this: John was talking to people who 
were confronted with certain heretical views. “ Do 
not be confused, nor worried/' he said. “If you 
want to put such views and persons to the test, 
make them admit the incarnation of Jesus Christ. 
He is God everlasting." 

Who denies that Jesus Christ was incarnated; 
that He came in the flesh; that He is very God of 
very God? Such a man is not of God, is not a 
Christian, was never regenerated. He is lost, and 
is just as sure of the pit as it is possible for one 


124 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


to be. John said, those who reject Him will deny 
the incarnation. That is just as true today as it 
was when John wrote it. Put every man to the 
test—his philosophy, his religion, his politics, his 
business, his social life, his domestic life—put 
every one to that test, and see whether or not he 
can stand it. If he knows experimentally that 
Jesus Christ is God, he is saved. If he does not 
know it, he is lost; he is of the opposite party and 
cannot be fellowshipped with, cannot be recog¬ 
nized ecclesiastically. He is ostracized, doomed. 
Let him remain so unless he confesses, and stands 
the test Christ has made. That is Christ's state¬ 
ment; that is the little Book of John. 

Let me say to you, without fear of contradiction, 
that the so-called modernist has not presented a 
single new attack on Christ. There is not on the 
page of history, nor in any book extant, a single 
new statement of attack on Christ. But, you ask 
me, what is the purpose of these men who are 
striking at Christ ? They are in the pulpits. They 
are taking the money out of good, orthodox pock¬ 
ets to pay for their bread and their wives' dresses. 
Why aren't they honest enough to say, “ We have 
repudiated God and Christ " ? Why do they con¬ 
tinue to ask Christians to feed them? Why are 
they making the attack on Christ ? There must be 
a purpose. Of course, the dynamic force con¬ 
trolling them is Satanic. Satan began his attack 
on God before he left heaven. God threw him out. 


THE OLD AND NEW MODERNIST 125 


He made another attack when he tempted Adam. 
He attacks Christ and the Church today. If he can 
use any agency, in the pulpit or out of it, to attack 
Christ he is going to do it. What is the clean-cut 
reason for these attacks? If the modernists could, 
by their rationalistic teachings, destroy your faith 
in God, then they would use intellectual and phys¬ 
ical force to set up a man-made government and 
religion in which they would be supreme. Page 
after page could be written to prove it. I will 
cite two. 

In 1780, Immanuel Kant, that German heretic, 
wrote his attack on Christ and on the Bible. Fred¬ 
erick William the Second ordered him to recant, 
and he wrote a recantation so weak and ridiculous 
that it became the laughing-stock of Germany. 

The writings of Nietzsche produced the idea of 
the superman which robbed Germany of her soul. 
It sent Germany's soul to the lowest recognized 
point. That is so clear that you can see it. The 
purpose is to destroy faith, the faith delivered once 
for all to the saints, in order that in its place there 
might be a system erected based upon force— 
physical, moral and intellectual. Nietzsche, Ger¬ 
many, the German sword, the decline of German 
civilization and the field of carnage is the answer 
to these attacks on Christ and the infallible Bible. 

I am trying to show you that there is nothing 
new in the little charlatan’s talk about modernism. 
Has any one found anything new in the attack on 


126 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


the vicarious, sacrificial doctrine? When did that 
attack begin. Some one has said, “ I do not believe 
in the blood. Do not sing ‘ There is a fountain 
filled with blood/ ” Cain said, “ I will not sacri¬ 
fice blood.” Sacrifice was repulsive to him. Yet, 
Cain became so angry about it, he killed his 
brother. Is there anything new in the attack on 
the blood? Come all the way down the ages and 
study the pantheistic doctrines of the past. No 
man can attack the blood without being a rank 
pantheist, or a Unitarian, or a rationalist. 

Will you please tell me whether there is anything 
new in the attack that is being made on the Bible? 
Jehoiakim made an attack on it. He said, “ Bring 
it to me and I will cut it up,” and he took his knife 
and cut it to pieces. The little charlatans of today 
are also trying to cut it to pieces. They have used 
their little pen-knives and their little scissors until 
they brought forth a great abortion—the shorter 
Bible. If there was ever a thing on earth mean and 
contemptible, it is their so-called shorter Bible. Is 
there anything new? Could you call it modern? 

Is there anything new in spiritism? Poor old 
Conan Doyle! If you have read any of his ef¬ 
fusions you are bound to admit that the man is 
slipping. They have all slipped, these spiritualists, 
except the characters who are too crooked to slip. 
Is there anything new about it? The witch of 
Endor started it. Coming on down the centuries, 
we find the Fox Sisters—three erratic girls. Then 


THE OLD AND NEW MODERNIST 127 


we come over to some erratic men, who are always 
worse than women. 

Is there any thing modern in the attack being 
made on Jesus Christ today? Does it come of 
scholarship, of education, of progress, of new reve¬ 
lation, new light? If it came from the modem 
advancement of today, then where did the Jews 
get it ? They made an attack on Christ about nine¬ 
teen hundred years ago, and they succeeded in con¬ 
spiring against Him, so far as they were concerned, 
and in crucifying Him. And all the way down to 
the Jews of today, such people are still attacking 
Him. Is there anything new in that ? 

They write about how we should treat these 
so-called heretics. The articles close with the sen¬ 
tence, “ We ought to have the Spirit of God.” 
That is one of their stock phrases. Ask one of 
them, and he will say, “ Yes, I believe in the Spirit 
of God.” They think that is one of the cleverest 
attacks on the Third Person. The Holy Ghost is 
a personality, just as you are. He is the Third 
Personality of the Godhead. He is coeval and 
co-equal with God. He is not the Spirit of God. 
He is God, the Third Person of the Trinity, inde¬ 
pendent, self-existent, everlasting, very God of very 
God, and yet the heretic and the atheist, the Uni¬ 
tarian and the Jew will talk about the Holy Spirit 
as the Spirit of God. Paul said, “ Have ye received 
the Holy Ghost?” They said, “We have not 
heard there is such a thing. We do not know any- 


128 GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 

thing about it. Don’t talk to us about the Third 
Person of the Trinity.” The modernists are just 
old, rank heretics in present day clothes. 

These charlatans talk about evolution being a 
science. In 1859 Darwin issued his little pamphlet 
and said: “ Remember that I am only offering a 
theory. I am only offering an hypothesis.” An 
hypothesis is a guess, and, in 1859, Darwin guessed 
wrong. He admitted before he died that he had 
guessed wrong. His son wholly repudiated his 
father’s guess. Others wrote denying it. Huxley 
said it was a failure. And, all the real scholars 
admit the collapse of the guess. One of the great¬ 
est scholars said: “ The trouble with so-called evo¬ 
lution is, it never arrived ” And that is true —it 
never arrived. It is not here yet. If real scholars, 
worthy of respect as scholars, were to advocate that 
hypothesis, then one should come back to the state¬ 
ment of John, and say, they are advocating it for 
the purpose of making an attack upon Christ and 
His creative sovereignty. The self-generating 
guess, the spontaneous generating guess, the nat¬ 
ural selection guess \of Darwin, if it were true, 
would strike a deadly blow at the sovereignty of 
God and at the power of Jesus Christ. But, there 
is not a scintilla of evidence in the world on which 
the guess could rest for a minute. There is not 
anything modern about it. 

I have proved my point of why the modernist is 
making the attack on Christ. You see, if he can 


THE OLD AND NEW MODERNIST 129 


make you waver in your faith, and, in the faith de¬ 
livered once for all to the saints, make you doubt 
the vicarious death of the Son of God, you will 
have to ask him to set you up a plan of salvation. 
He comes with environment, education, character, 
and talks about the progress he is making. Why 
isn’t there a regenerated man, somewhere in the 
world, who can stand up and say, “ I know Jesus 
Christ experimentally because I am a Unitarian ” ? 
That would answer the whole question. He does 
not know experimentally anything about Christ. 
Why can’t you find somewhere a man who has been 
educated into the spiritual life? Why can’t you 
find some one who can say, “ I am a legalist, I have 
kept the Ten Commandments absolutely, I am per¬ 
fect, and I am ready to go to heaven.” A moralist 
is afraid to say he is a legalist. He must have 
some doubt about it. The experimental knowledge 
of Christ casts out all fear and doubt of salvation. 
If you could find one somewhere in the realm who 
could stand up and say, “ God has received me 
because I have kept His commandments abso¬ 
lutely ”—that would answer the attack on His 
vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice. You have to be 
saved by a supernatural personage. You have to 
be saved by the Second Person of the Trinity, take 
Plis place under law, satisfying the voice of nature, 
the demand of God and the requisites of righteous¬ 
ness before you can stand at all. Is not that true? 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, wearing the cloak of 


130 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


this human flesh, stood before God and said, what 
the legalist cannot say, “ Father, I have come to 
fulfill—to fill full—the law. I have come and I 
challenge the law, and I challenge the penal end of 
the law.” When He had finished, He stood before 
His Father, as He stands today and says, “ Father, 
my blood has stood the test, and I ask you to apply 
it to that man's soul.” 

That is Christianity, that is the whole thing. Do 
you believe in Christ, and know experimentally the 
Son of God? If so, you ought to repudiate every 
man who denies that the blood of Jesus Christ 
saves. You ought to go forth and teach Jesus 
Christ and Him crucified. Be true to Christ. Be 
loyal to Him, though all the world fails. The blood 
constitutes the only ground God has for saying, 
You are justified. I speak reverentially when I 
say, God could not save you without the blood of 
Christ. It is the only ground God has for saving 
you. You stand before Him justified. Are you 
going to repudiate that doctrine? Then confess 
Him before men and He will confess you before 
the Father, and before His angels. I know him 
experimentally because saved by His vicarious 
blood, shed on Calvary's brow for my redemption. 


XIV 


THE JEW AND HIS RELATIONSHIP TO 
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE 

“Now the Lord God had said unto Abram, Get thee 
out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy 
father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I 
will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, 
and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing 
. . . and in thee shall all the families of the earth be 
blessed ”— Genesis 12:1-3. 

I F you want to comprehend this subject, you 
should read beginning with the twelfth chap¬ 
ter of Genesis, and ending with the twelfth 
chapter of Matthew. In addition to my text, read 
the following passages as keys to the subject: 
Genesis 28: 13-14; Leviticus 20 and 26; II Kings 
17:34; Exodus 2: 24-25; Exodus 6: 6-8. 

Remember, the eleventh chapter of Romans is an 
epitome of all the Scriptures between Genesis 
twelve, and Matthew twelve. Read the first six 
verses of Romans eleven, and read the rest of the 
chapter later. 

From the human standpoint, the greatest fact in 
history is the Jew, and the Jew is a fact. He is not 
a theory, he is a separate and distinct fact. It is as 
impossible to get rid of the Jew as it is to pluck the 


131 


132 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


sun from its orbit. It is as impossible to move the 
Jew out of his place as it is to jostle the planets out 
of their spheres. It is as impossible to prevent the 
Jew from coming to the ultimate end and place that 
God has decreed for him as it is to shake the 
heavens and move them out of their ultimate 
sphere. The Jew is a fact. 

If you have ever doubted the Scriptures; if you 
have ever doubted God’s electing grace; if you have 
ever doubted God’s decrees, or God’s plans, you 
should converse with some real, orthodox Jew. 
Not that he is going to inform you of more than I 
have mentioned, but, as you look at him and study 
him, you will find he is not the product of evolu¬ 
tion. He is one character in history that the evo¬ 
lutionists would not dare to place, if they were 
honest or knew what they were talking about. The 
Jew is not a product of evolution. He is not a 
climatic product. No climate in the world pro¬ 
duced the Jew. He is not the product of any geo¬ 
graphical section—though he has a geographical 
destiny and a geographical beginning. But, the 
geographical beginning and setting, and the geo¬ 
graphical destiny of the Jew did not produce him. 
He is not the product of evolution; he is not the 
result of chance; he is not a climatic condition; 
but he is a God-created, God-decreed, God-called, 
God-elected and God-protected individual. He 
stands before God, separate from all nationalities 
of the world, from all the histories of the world. 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 133 


and from all peoples of the world—he is a separate 
and distinct entity. 

Prior to the calling of Abraham the whole 
human family was one family, and distinctions 
were not made. But, when God called Abraham, 
He called him out from the world family; He 
called him out for redemptive purposes, and called 
him to a divine destiny. He then and there 
created; He then and there selected; He then and 
there elected Israel for a definite and distinct place 
in life. 

You might ask me why He selected Israel, why 
He brought Israel into existence. It would be 
necessary for me to go back of the period prior to 
that; but, you are sufficiently familiar with the sub¬ 
ject for me to say that the human family, coming 
into existence by the creative act of God, failing to 
occupy the place that God created for the family, 
having disobeyed God, and having permitted evil 
and sin to come into existence, lost its place before 
God. Then it became God’s purpose to present 
Himself to the human race. It was His purpose to 
save the human family from the wreck and ruin 
produced by the Fall. The Garden of Eden was 
not strong enough; the environment was not per¬ 
fect enough; the vegetable diet was not sufficient; 
the communion with God, and the beautiful com¬ 
munion with nature, all failed to keep the human 
family intact, failed to keep it in purity, failed to 
keep it from sin. It fell; and the human con- 


134 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


science was not sufficient to bring it back. God had 
to call, and He did elect an agency through which 
to present Himself and the plan of salvation to a 
lost and ruined world. 

Let me then call your attention to this significant 
fact: If there is any one in the world who doubts 
human depravity, if there is any one who doubts 
total depravity, or doubts that man is a lost, ruined 
soul, let him look into the face of some Israelite. 
That Israelite would not have been called, would 
not be in existence, would not have gone through 
the history of the past up to the present, and would 
not have traveled the marked path of the Jew, had 
it not been for the Fall of man, the degeneration of 
the human race, and the total depravity of the indi¬ 
vidual, as well as the race. The Jew is a witness, 
infallible, eternal and everlasting, to the total de¬ 
pravity of the human family, and, he is God-elected 
witness to that fact. He was God-elected and it was 
an unconditional election. There was not a single 
condition on which that election was based. It was 
unconditional. There was no special merit in 
Abraham. There was no merit in any human 
being in this universe. There were no works, no 
meritorious deeds, and there were no conditions, 
nor anything that could appeal to God. The 
election of Abraham was an unconditional election 
for the purposes that God had in view, namely, to 
present Himself to a lost and ruined world for the 
salvation of man. 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 135 


There is another fact, just as significant and 
just as important, namely: God not only elected 
Abraham, Israel, and the whole Jewish race to the 
things that I am going to talk about, but God 
selected a land for His people. The election of 
Abraham and the selection and gift of the land to 
His people was by the decree of Almighty God. 
Israel was not in Palestine by chance, and the 
Palestinian land was not given to Israel by chance, 
but it was by the act and decree of Almighty God. 
There is no power in this universe to prevent the 
fulfillment of that decree and promise and gift. 

I read an article written by one of the dis¬ 
tinguished Hebrews of America. At the close of 
it he certainly weakened when he undertook to deal 
in statistics about the ability of the land to hold 
and to feed the House of Israel. My friends, let 
me ask this question, and let me suggest this to the 
world: If the great God of this universe out of His 
own decrees called Abraham, if the great God of 
this universe selected that land, then the great God 
of this universe is able to make that land sufficient 
unto the day and unto the conditions, and unto the 
people that will occupy it. He is dealing with God, 
not with a human problem. He is dealing with a 
decree, not with a chance. He is dealing with a 
destiny, not a temporary situation. He seems to 
have forgotten that fact. 

Then, in the unconditional election of Abraham, 
and in the unconditional selection of the land that 


136 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


God decreed, He selected Israel and the land in 
order that Abraham and the nation out of him and 
under him might be a universal blessing. God in¬ 
tended, through this people, to diffuse a blessing 
upon the whole world. That was the purpose of 
God, the intention of God, and He will make that 
promise good. It shall not fail. 

In the next place, God selected these people in 
order that through them might come the instru¬ 
ment, the means by which the fulfillment of these 
promises might become real to the whole world. 
When He promised them that they should be the 
line through which this great instrument should 
come, He set forth certain facts for them to ob¬ 
serve, namely: They were to keep in harmony with 
Him; they were to obey His laws; they were to 
live the righteous, clean, straightforward life. 

Now, we find that when Jesus Christ came, His 
own people rejected Him, though He had been 
promised, though He had been foretold to them 
from very infancy, and there was not a Jew in all 
the world that was not required to memorize the 
Scriptures. The Jews knew the prophets, and they 
knew the prophets because they were Jews, and the 
prophecies were written by Jews, and their children 
were required to memorize and master the Scrip¬ 
tures. And, when Jesus was bom, He came 
through the line that God had decreed. He had to 
come through the line of David and through the 
line of Mary, and the union between the two makes 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 137 


the line absolutely perfect. The line of Joseph, if 
you please, had to take place by union, and not by 
generation. It had to take place between Joseph 
and Mary. But, the line of direct descent had to 
come through Mary. So Jesus was in line for the 
fulfillment of the promise; and He is still in line, 
and the promises concerning Him and the throne 
through that line will yet be fulfilled. 

God promised that when Jesus Christ should 
come He would set up a kingdom; that He would 
establish the kingdom; and yet, when He was pre¬ 
sented to the Jews for that purpose, they rejected 
Him. They had occupied the place of blessing, 
teaching, promise and power, but when Jesus 
Christ, their Messiah and King, through both of 
these lines—David and Mary—was presented to 
them, they rejected Him. 

But Jesus Christ did not withdraw His kingly 
power when He was rejected by them. He was by 
their rejection, and by their testimony, and by their 
efforts, crucified as King of the Jews; and He died 
upon the Cross as King of the Jews. When He 
died upon the Cross as King of the Jews and was 
buried and rose again, and ascended, He took His 
place at the right hand of God as the mediator of 
those who believe in Him. He promised that He 
would come again and fulfill all promises between 
Genesis 3 and Matthew 12. Jesus Christ promised 
that He would come again and fulfill those prom¬ 
ises. He will come again. 


138 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Having gone briefly over some of the steps, we 
find the Jew still here. Prior to the time I have 
mentioned—the rejection of Jesus Christ—the Jew 
had a national existence. He had been in existence 
three thousand years; and, in less than seven hun¬ 
dred of those years, his national, cohesive power 
had existed; and in practically twenty-five hundred 
years of that time he has lost his national existence; 
and from the crucifixion of Christ until the present 
moment the national life of the Jew does not and 
cannot exist. 

But, you ask, was the Jew nationally rejected? 
Yes, the Jew was nationally rejected. Mark what 
I am saying—nationally rejected. Why was he 
nationally rejected? (I am speaking, first, of the 
time prior to the Crucifixion.) Because of his 
idolatry. God required the Jew to live before Him 
in righteousness, in recognition of his power, and 
his position, and his relationship to Him. The Jew 
was first rejected because of his idolatry. He was 
most idolatrous, and idolatry caused his national 
rejection. Not only were the Jews individual idol¬ 
aters at the time of their rejection, but nationally 
they were idolators, and because of national idol¬ 
atry they were rejected. 

Secondly, they were rejected because they re¬ 
jected Jesus Christ. When the Jew nationally 
turned his back on his own King—Jesus Christ— 
God rejected the Jew, and nationally he has not 
existed since. And, thirdly, the reason for the 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 139 


rejection of the Jew was because he refused the 
Gospel to the Gentiles. 

Note these three reasons for the national rejec¬ 
tion of the Jew: (1) Because of his idolatry; (2) 
Because of his rejection of Christ; (3) Because he 
refused the Gospel to the Gentiles. He was re¬ 
quired to give the Gospel to the world. It was the 
decree of God, the command of God. It was the 
duty of the Jew to give the gospel to the world. 
Let me digress for a moment and say that the Jew 
will ultimately give the Gospel to the world. But, 
when he rejected Christ, then he rejected the op¬ 
portunity of giving the Gospel to the world. The 
Jew was nationally rejected by Almighty God for 
these reasons. The land was taken from him. 
Immediately? No, he lived in Palestine nearly 
forty years after the Crucifixion of Christ, but the 
land passed out of his power and out of his con¬ 
trol, and it has been out of his control ever since. 
It will never be restored to him until the steps that 
God has decreed are fulfilled for the restoration of 
that land. But, that land shall be restored to him, 
and he shall be restored to that land. 

Now, let us see what he has been doing since 
that time: He has been scattered all over the world. 
You should keep ever before you that the Jew is a 
fact—not a theory, nor a doctrine, nor a chance. 
The Jew is a fact—the most stubborn fact in 
history. 

Since the rejection of Christ, and since the Jew 


140 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


has been nationally rejected, what has occurred? 
He has been scattered all over the world, and has 
been imbedded in all the nations of the world; and 
yet, he has not lost one single characteristic. Wrap 
him up in the nationality of any country, bury him 
in the bosom of any nationality, and you cannot 
destroy his individuality, and God-decreed, God- 
created, God-elected characteristics and national 
distinction. Isn’t that a fact ? And yet he does not 
exist nationally, and cannot now exist nationally. 

The Jew was decreed to be a blessing to the 
world. He shall yet be a blessing to the world. In 
the Scriptural sense that I am talking about, he has 
not been the blessing since he rejected Christ, be¬ 
cause he has not had the blessing to bestow. And 
yet, a great blessing has come to the world through 
the Jew, namely, Jesus Christ and the Gospel of 
Christ. 

Now, if through Christ and through the Jew this 
partial blessing—this blessing of salvation, this 
blessing of Christianity—has come, what will be 
the blessing when the Jew nationally is brought 
back to God, regenerated and used as the evangel¬ 
istic agent of God? Can you imagine it? Is it not 
marvelous? What will be the blessing? 

What have the Jews who rejected Christ been 
doing? They have been in all the countries of the 
world. They have known the Scriptures; and yet, 
the Jew is responsible for the evil propaganda of 
infidelity in the world. The real rejection of the 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 141 


Scriptures throughout the world has been the 
result of the propaganda of unregenerated, unsaved 
Jews. Spinoza, if you please, who once occupied a 
place as an orthodox Jew, and who was rejected by 
the Jews, and his companions—Spinoza is re¬ 
sponsible, not only for the atheism, the attack upon 
the validity of God’s Word, but, he and his are 
responsible for the rationalism that, today, is curs¬ 
ing the world. Very easy to understand, isn’t it? 

In the providence of God, the Jew was decreed 
to be, not only a national blessing, but an individ¬ 
ual blessing. If the Jews rejected their King and 
their Christ, who, according to their own Scrip¬ 
tures, came without broken line through David and 
Joseph, and, on the other side of the house, through 
Mary—and they cannot deny the line unless they 
deny the Scriptures—and, therefore, in order to 
avoid the line and the convincing fact of the in¬ 
fallibility of God’s Word they must attack it, 
though it came through their own lines and 
through their own prophets, they have been not a 
blessing, but a curse. Not only that, but they are 
responsible for the rationalistic teachings of today; 
and, out of those rationalistic teachings, they, 
knowing the Scriptures, have been led into the 
heresies of which you have heard. Some have 
undertaken to say that, through human efforts, 
human governments, and through human agencies, 
they would establish and accomplish what God has 
decreed in His Holy Word shall take place at the 


142 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


right time and under the right circumstances. They 
undertook to say that out of governments, and 
empires and republics, they would build a govern¬ 
ment, establish an empire, set up a kingdom and 
rule. But, they will never do it by human means, 
nor by human governments. It cannot be done in 
that way. 

There are prophecies in God’s Word, there are 
infallible statements in God’s Word, that when the 
time comes the kingdom of Israel shall be estab¬ 
lished, and on the throne of David. The only one 
entitled to sit on it, namely, Jesus Christ, will 
occupy it and will reign supreme over the earth, 
with the seat of government in the land that God 
decreed. That is Scripture; that is prophecy, and 
not human imagination. That is decree, and not 
human strategy. It shall be done. God will bring 
the Jew back to Palestine. 

What have they been doing? The Jews, because 
of their rejection of Christ and rejection of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, have been the fountains of 
the socialism, communism and Bolshevism, out of 
which has come all the political philosophy and 
anarchy of the world. There are twenty-four 
Jews today trying to control Russia, and out of 
that has come the miserable mess that presents 
itself to the world. Why? Because no people, no 
individual, and no nation can reject Christ and lay 
the foundations of a permanent government. It 
cannot be done. 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 143 


Another thing: The philosophy of Karl Marx 
has been the entering wedge of the economic chaos 
of the world, as well as the philosophy of the Jews 
of Russia, which has been the entering wedge of 
the political and governmental chaos of Russia, and 
will be of the world if their doctrines are adopted. 
Why? You cannot set up the philosophy of Karl 
Marx, you cannot deny the infallibility of God’s 
Word, reject Christ, the only Savior of man, and 
establish an economic system that will cure the ills 
of the day, or build a government, economic or 
otherwise, that will bring peace, prosperity and 
happiness to the world. It cannot be done. 

The prophecies we have been discussing ask the 
question and present the fact that, if the Jew has 
been rejected nationally what position does the Jew 
hold under the Gospel? In the eleventh chapter of 
Romans, God says that He has rejected the Jew 
nationally, but not individually. Today the indi¬ 
vidual Jew and the individual Gentile are both in¬ 
cluded under disobedience, unbelief and sin in order 
that the grace of Christ may operate equally to 
save both. 

The Jew at the present day could not nationally 
come to God, because the steps to be taken have not 
yet been taken. But, each and every individual 
Jew in the world may accept Jesus Christ, and by 
His vicarious death be regenerated. Thousands of 
Jews, individually, are accepting Christ and are, by 
His blood, being regenerated, saved and baptized 


144 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


into the body of Christ; for Christ has said that 
His body shall be composed of Jews and Gentiles. 

There are but two classes of humanity in the 
world today—Jew and Gentile. The whole world, 
outside of the Jew, is called Gentile. The fourteen 
million Jews in the world constitute the other clas¬ 
sification. Christ has said that he who believes, 
whether Jew or Gentile, will be saved by the blood 
which He spilled on Calvary; and, He spilled it as 
the Son of God, the son of David, through the line 
of Israel, for the salvation of Israel, and the salva¬ 
tion of whoever might accept His atonement for 
their salvation. 

The prophecies I have mentioned show that when 
Jesus Christ was rejected, the calendar concerning 
the Jew ceased. From Genesis 12 to Matthew 12 
is the Jewish calendar. When Jesus Christ was 
rejected the calendar ceased. There is no national 
calendar for Israel—only the individual Jew. 
Isaac, Jeremiah, or whatever his name may be, 
stands before God’s grace a beneficiary of God’s 
love, and can be saved by the vicarious atonement 
of Jesus Christ. But, the prophecy states that 
when God called out Abraham, elected him and 
gave him the land, after certain things were ac¬ 
complished it would be perpetual. But they re¬ 
jected Christ, became idolaters, and refused to give 
the Gospel to the Gentiles. The calendar is cut off 
from that period to this. From that time to now 
is the period of nineteen hundred years through 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 145 


which we are passing. I do not know how long 
between Matthew twelve, and His Second Coming, 
or how many years will run. There is not any¬ 
thing in this period except the grace of Jesus 
Christ. 11 all the Jews in the world could stand 
before God between that period and this, living an 
absolutely righteous life, and if they had all the 
machinery on earth and all the money in the world, 
they could not be transported to Palestine and be 
established as a national entity. Therefore, the 
Zion movement is one of the greatest farces, and 
one of the most futile institutions ever established 
by a deluded people. If the money of the universe 
were put into the hands of the Jews, and all the 
transportation facilities of the world were theirs, 
they could not be gathered in that land at the 
present moment. Someone has said, Allenby’s 
victory meant the completion of prophecy. But, 
the time of the Gentiles must run. 

Mr. Jew, you are the greatest fact in history. 
You are God’s elected agent. God brought down 
through you His own Son, but you rejected Him 
and lost the national power, the national right, the 
national ability, and the national privilege of gath¬ 
ering your people and presenting to the world a 
nation, until certain things take place. What are 
they? You cannot make a king. God gave you a 
King. You were angry at the form of government 
you had, and, in a foolish moment, you got a king, 
a monarch, didn’t you ? But God gave you finally 


146 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


the King that was crucified. And you shall 
never have another king, and you cannot go back 
to the land without The King, and you cannot 
have the land without the sceptre over the land. 
Then what will take place? 

This period is the period of the Church. The 
Church is not Israel. The Church is composed of 
Jew and Gentile, and in this period is the Church. 
In this period is the doctrine of grace. This is the 
period of preaching the gospel, and in this period 
the time of the Gentiles will end. It is only a defi¬ 
nite period, but, when it ends, the King of the 
Jews will come, and the Jews, unregenerated, just 
as they are, scattered all over the world, will be 
gathered back into the national land, and when the 
remnant of Israel comes back to God and is then 
in possession of the Gospel and preaching, the Jews 
shall be converted and their national existence 
restored. 

There shall arise an antagonistic force, the anti¬ 
christ. But, Jesus Christ shall strike the mighty 
blow and destroy the antichrist, and the govern¬ 
ments of the earth shall yield to the Son of God, 
the King of the Jews; and Israel, with Christ as 
King, shall reign supreme over the earth for a 
thousand years. 

Then why waste time, Jew, in all of your ra¬ 
tionalism ? Why cease to be a blessing to the world 
by your Bolshevism and socialism, and all other 
isms and rationalism? Don’t follow Spinoza; 


THE JEW—PRESENT AND FUTURE 147 


don’t follow Marx; don’t follow those who reject 
Christ. But, oh, individual Jew, let me beg you 
to accept Christ, that you may be with me a mem¬ 
ber in the body of Christ. 

We are not following the order of the Gospel. 
It is our business to carry the message to the Jew 
first, and then to the world. It was His business 
to carry the Gospel to the Jew first, and to the 
world. It is your business, as a converted Chris¬ 
tian, a regenerated man, a child of God, to carry 
the gospel to the Jew, and you do not do it. You 
have neglected him. 

Russia, falling into the hands of twenty-four 
Jews, is in hell today. The Roman Church today 
is aiding and abetting the hellward trend under 
the Bolsheviks of Russia, so that the Greek 
Church may become so discouraged and so com¬ 
pletely wrecked that Rome may put her hand on 
Russia. That is the practical conspiracy. What 
are you going to do about it? My friends, it is 
your fault that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not 
been given to Russia. It is your fault that the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ is not given to the Jew all 
over the world. There are two million Jews in 
New York City, and just one or two little missions. 
That glorious people, how I love them! I love 
them nationally, I love them individually, I love the 
prophecy about them; I love the steps of that 
prophecy yet to be taken; I love the glorious state¬ 
ment that we will ultimately be established under 


148 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Jesus Christ, with Israel as the co-reigning power 
over this world. But we have not done our duty. 
We have not presented the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
the only method of salvation, to the Jew. He has 
been persecuted. That was logical. He had to be 
persecuted. But, my friends, he would not be per¬ 
secuted if you and I, consecrated Christian men, 
were taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the blood 
of Jesus, to the Jew and offering Christ to him 
individually. I love the Jew individually and col¬ 
lectively. Let us do our duty to him. 

Oh, lost Gentile and lost Jew, won’t you take 
my Saviour? Won’t you take Him who is called 
Jesus, your King, because you will be a member 
of His Bride, as well as a part of His reigning 
power, when He reigns supreme over this world 
for a thousand years? 


XV 


CHRIST IS COMING! 

“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have 
seen him go into heaven ”— Acts i : ii. 

T HE Second Coming of Christ is the greatest 
fact in prophetic statement. It is a fact to 
which all things are moving, and without 
which no event could proceed. If you refer to the 
history of man, and are a close student, you can 
write that history in one word—“ failure.” If 
each person now living could write a volume about 
the history of man, and all the volumes were put 
into one room and the door locked, you could write 
across the door the words, “ The Compilation of 
the World’s Failures.” You would have a com¬ 
plete history that could not be altered. 

Take the first instance, the beautiful surround¬ 
ings in which Adam and Eve found themselves—a 
setting pronounced perfect so far as conditions and 
capabilities for happiness and success were con¬ 
cerned. Yet even under such conditions they failed 
absolutely. 

Pass from that period to another—into a system, 
complicated and sinful beyond description, which 
at the end was washed away. 

149 


150 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


Commencing another period, and sweeping 
across other centuries, we see a people surrounded 
by laws, governed by rules and directed by cus¬ 
toms, taught by direct ministration of God, yet an 
utter failure! 

When Christ came into existence as God’s Incar¬ 
nate Son, He came for the specific purpose of re¬ 
deeming man, not for the purpose of correcting 
man’s failures, or glossing over the crimes he had 
committed. But, admitting man’s miserable fail¬ 
ures, his total depravity, his utter inability to 
emancipate himself or lift himself from the bond¬ 
age, curse of sin and the judgment of damnation, 
Christ, Very God of Very God,—the Son of 
God—came in the form of a human being, clothed 
in the form of this monumental failure, so that 
He might lift that lost and helpless human soul 
back to God. 

Christ divested Himself of invisibility and 
clothed Himself in flesh, but not to remain in that 
state. He came to establish His Father’s kingdom. 
When He presented Himself to His chosen people, 
they refused Him and His kingdom—another evi¬ 
dence of man’s miserable failure. After they 
refused Him and the kingdom, He established His 
Church on earth to take form and develop in the 
period lying between His Ascension and His 
Second Coming. The Church is here for a specific 
purpose, and that purpose is to present Christ, the 
Redeemer, to a lost world; to present the hope and 


CHRIST IS COMING! 


151 


fact of His Second Coming to the world, and to 
watch and wait for that coming and be in readiness 
to receive Him when He comes. 

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, the 
Church was left with the outstanding, powerful, 
controlling, dynamic doctrine of His Second Com¬ 
ing. It never really lost that doctrine, but, as early 
as 325 a. d. began to eliminate it from its teach¬ 
ings. When the Church believes that doctrine and 
teaches it, it is blessed. When the Church elimi¬ 
nates it from its teachings, to that extent it loses its 
power and becomes impotent to do the work that 
God purposed it should do. 

Should the doctrine of the Second Coming be 
magnified? Not out of proper proportion. But, 
you cannot preach any one of the great doctrines 
and leave that of Christ’s Second Coming out, any 
more than you can leave the main spring out of 
your watch and expect it to keep time. You cannot 
preach the Incarnation of Christ and stop there; 
because if you do you dishonor Christ, deprive 
yourself of blessings, and paralyze the arm of 
power the Church receives through the acceptance 
and proclamation of this doctrine. 

For the first three hundred years following 
Christ’s Ascension, when the whole program He 
taught while on earth was presented, the Church 
was blessed. When the Church began to select and 
delete doctrines, she lost power. I refer you to 
history. There is not a pulpit in the world possess- 


152 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ing the power to leave out the doctrine of Christ’s 
Second Coming. In the New Testament there are 
scores of references to this doctrine. Why, in 
writing the New Testament, does God mention this 
truth so many times ? Why, in the Old Testament, 
does every book except two refer not only to the 
First, but also to the Second Coming of Christ? 
One might cite more than one reason why, if such 
were the case, references occur to the First coming 
only, in the Old Testament. But, mark this: God 
would not have permitted the inspired writers to 
write the Old Testament had they eliminated His 
instructions regarding the Second Coming. 

In the Bible there is a complete cycle of events. 
Christ was! He came! He went! He is! He is 
coming! He will go back! 

Another fact: Why did the angels appear to the 
disciples on Olivet and say to them, “ Why stand 
ye gazing up into heaven ? ” What, in modem 
language, they said to them was: “ Go about your 
business. Begin to preach. He is coming again 
in the same manner in which you have seen Him 
pass out of your sight.” There must have been, 
there must be, a reason for all this. There is. The 
reason lies in the fact, in the hope, in the finished 
program of God. 

Why is this doctrine so essential? Because the 
whole question of the infallibility of Holy Scrip¬ 
ture is lodged in it. Christ would not have risen 
from the dead if it were not for the logical se- 


CHRIST IS COMING! 


153 


quence that His Coming again to the earth fur¬ 
nishes. There is not a pre-millennialist on earth 
who doubts the credibility of the Scriptures. One 
of the greatest exponents of Unitarianism said, not 
long ago, “ The doctrine of pre-millennialism is a 
fact if we admit the infallibility of the Bible.” He 
was honest enough to say that. What are the ra¬ 
tionalists trying to do? Not to destroy the pre- 
millennial doctrine, but to destroy the infallibility 
of the Bible. The infallibility of the Bible is the 
battleground of the theological world. 

Every well-informed, conscientious, devout be¬ 
liever in this, and other Bible doctrines, is an 
earnest worker for the salvation of the world. 
All the great evangelists have been, and are, true 
to this doctrine, because, after Christ presented the 
question and testified that He would return, He 
said, “Watch; I am coming again. Watch and 
work.” You are compelled to be an evangelist if 
you believe in your heart that Christ is coming 
again. If you thought He might come today, you 
would want your house in order, and your work 
ready for His inspection. You would want to have 
your books ready for the trial balance of the 
Auditor of the Universe. You would want to be 
at your post of duty to honor and to please Him. 
This doctrine implies cleanliness, purity, honor, 
righteousness, and provides the incentive for so 
living. The whole life of a true follower of the 
Lord is centered in an expectancy of Christ’s Sec- 


154. 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


ond Coming. If you knew He were coming you 
would be preaching, praying, and giving that some 
soul might be snatched as a brand from the 
burning. 

So much for the facts of His coming. What 
about the program? The text tells us that He is 
coming in like manner as He departed. That is, 
in the same body in which He ascended to God— 
a body you can see and handle, and that is perfectly 
tangible to you. It will be a visible, tangible, real 
appearance. 

Several things must first take place. There are 
teachers who tell us He may come at any moment. 
I agree that Christ could come, today, and lift me 
up, but Christ is not coming to the earth with me 
until certain things and prophecies have been ful¬ 
filled. When He comes for the redeemed, three 
things will take place. 

I. The Christian dead will be raised by Christ. 
That is, the dead who died looking for His coming 
and who were redeemed by Him. 

II. The redeemed living on earth will be im¬ 
mediately changed and given a spiritual, glorified 
body, just like that of those raised from the dead. 

III. Together they will rise to meet Christ in 
the air, be greeted by Him, and dwell with Him. 

The Bible states that, following that event, the 
seventieth week of Daniel's prophecy begins, and 
at the end of that time Christ will bring the Church 
back to the earth with Him, and that for ten centu- 


CHRIST IS COMING! 


155 


ries she will reign with Him on earth. Then, after 
He has finished the work of judging the nations, 
and at the completion of a thousand years, He is 
going to take the redeemed back to the new heaven, 
the everlasting, permanent abode, where they will 
be together for ever and ever. 

Our duty, then, is to watch and work, evangelize 
America and the world—if our Lord tarry long 
enough. But, should He not tarry, we should be 
ready to present to Him a record that is without 
spot or blemish, a life of service, a life of loyalty, 
a life of power that has no weakness in it because it 
is built on a belief in the whole Scripture. 

Christ does not say “ Work, for you will be dead 
tomorrow/’ but “ Work, for I am coming.” In 
other words, Christ’s Second Coming is the bound¬ 
ary that He places to service. 

I am not going to discuss the signs of His com¬ 
ing. There are sufficient signs all about us to 
indicate that we are in the midst of the period 
immediately prior to that in which some of these 
events are to take place. The world would not be 
in such a restless condition if certain things were 
not about ready to occur. There is awful pain, 
famine, and indescribable restlessness and uncer¬ 
tainty almost everywhere. The world’s greatest 
crisis is yet to come, and it cannot be ushered in 
until the Son of God instructs the angels to sound 
the trumpet in order that He may gather the 
Church to Himself before the crash comes, the 


156 


GOSPEL SWORD THRUSTS 


crash that will be heard and felt from the pits 
of hell to the throne of God. The world is 
pregnant. It is going to pass through hell, and 
that at a time not far distant. Be ready! Christ 
is coming! 


Printed in the United States of America 


“FUNDAMENTALS” 


RT. REV. WILLIAM T. MANNING , D.D., D.C.L . 

Bishop of New York. 

Personal Religion 

!What It Is and What It Means. $1.00. 

With fine force and frankness, yet in a spirit entirely 
free from controversial bitterness. Bishop Manning dis¬ 
cusses some of these paramount questions and their 
vital relation to the life of our own time. 

J. C. MASSEE, D.D. 

Pastor of Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 

The Gospel in the Ten Commandments 

A Series of Sermons Delivered on Sunday 
Evenings by the Pastor of Tremont Temple. $1.25. 

“As an evidence of the forcefullness of these sermons, 
approximately one hundred fiftjr people made public pro¬ 
fessions of faith in Christ during the time of their de¬ 
livery .”—Baptist Messenger. 

CLARENCE E. MACARTNEY , D.D. 

Pastor, Arch Street Presbyterian Church, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

Twelve Great Questions About Christ 

$1.50 or $1.75. 

Dr. Macartney stands foursquare for fundamental Chris¬ 
tian beliefs. He has also a good understanding of views 
and opinions contrary to his own, and demonstrates his 
ability to measure and mark the trend of modern criticism. 

MARK A. MATTHEWS , D.D., LL.D. 

Pastor. First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Wash. 

Gospel Sword-Thrusts 

$1.25. 

A hook of addresses eminently characteristic of their 
author. Dr. Matthews is a national figure. Pastor of 
the Presbyterian Church having the largest membership 
in the world, he is a fearless protagonist of Fundamen¬ 
talist doctrine and greatly in demand at conventions and 
other gatherings. 

EDWIN C. SWEETSER , D.D. 

Pastof-Emeritus, Church of the Messiah, Philadelphia . 

The Image of God 

And Other Sermons. 

Dr. Sweetser is a veteran preacher, having spent more 
than fifty years in the active ministry. Here are twefcty- 
five sermons treating on great themes—of questions whioa 
are of importance to everybody, and of paramount in¬ 
terest to the Christian believer. 









BIOGRAPHY, ETC. 


WAYNE C. W. WILLIAMS 

William Jennings Bryan 

A Study in Political Vindication. $1.00. 

This book is not a biography. The great “Commoner" 
has withstood successfully, a great storm of adverse criti¬ 
cism and obloquy. Mr. Williams here presents a concise, 
succinct review of Mr. Bryan’s extraordinary contribution 
to the life and welfare of his time. 

CLARA DENISON LOOMIS 

Friend, of the East Dor emus School (Woman's 
Union Missionary Society), Yokohama, Japan. 

Henry Loomis i Friend of the East 

Introduction by Robert E. Speer. $1.25. 

A clear, concise account of the life and labors of a 
naan who through a period of forty-eight years labored 
in Japan and Korea, and came into close, personal contact 
with the people of the Far Fast. 

CLEMENTINA BUTLER 

Chairman, Executive Committee, 
American Ramabai Association. 

Pandita Ramabai (Sarasvati) 

Pioneer in the Movement for Education of .the 
Child-Widow of India. Illustrated. $1.00. 

The story of Pundita Ramabai is in every way a re¬ 
markable one. She it was who first heard the cry of the 
child-widow of India. Without resources, herself a widow 
and surrounded by fanaticism and superstition, yet she 
made her voice heard. 

MRS. ARTHUR PARKER 

Sadhu Sundar Singh 

Fourth Edition. Illustrated. $1.25. 

This new edition contains a 28-page appendix reporting 
the Sadhu’s visit to England and America in 1920, his 
experiences in Tibet in 1921, and his trip through 
Palestine and Europe in 1922. 

ROBERT E. SPEER , D.D. (Editor) 

A Missionary Pioneer in the Far East 

A Memorial of Divie Bethune McCartee. $1.50. 

*‘A story of wonderful achievement and is a striking 
illustration of how the missionary, when he has states¬ 
manlike qualities, touches the whole life of the nation 
where he ministers.”— Christian Work. 




















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